The Variety of Family Life in East Asia: A Comparative Study Using Issp 2012

This aim of this study is examining the variety of the family life, especially the variety of division of care work in East Asia.

Recently, the study about welfare regimes and criticism to it has been developed (Lewis 1992; Bussmaker and van Kersbergen 1994; Esping-Andersen 1999). In addition, the variety of familialism regime in Europe is examined (Leitner 2003; Calzada and Brooks 2013; Therborn 2013). However, the positions of familialism regimes, especially those in East Asian societies are still unclear.

On the other, study about family life in East Asia has been also developed (Ochiai and Ueno eds 2006; Iwai and Yasuda eds 2009; Suzuki 2012; Chang 2010; Ochiai 2013). However, the empirical study about the variety of East Asian familialism is still developing.

 I revealed that people in East Asian societies hold strong familialism about the childcare and elderly care than societies in other welfare regimes, and that people in South Korea hold weaker familialism about care than Japan and Taiwan significantly (Toma and Takenoshita 2015). However, the difference of actual family life is still unclear.

So, I conducted a comparative study between welfare regimes and between East Asian societies using ISSP 2012.

 Analysis revealed that (1) people in East Asian societies spend fewer hours to care their family than societies in other welfare regimes significantly, (2) there is a possibility that people in liberal regime and conservative regime bear the care work by their own more than people in East Asia, (3) couples in Taiwan and South Korea bear the care work more equal than Japan.

 On the date of the session, I will discuss the relationship between global social changes and such variety of family life in East Asia.