Asian Family Values in the 21st Century: Overview of Comparative Asian Family Survey Data

Family values in Asian have undergone a dramatic change since Asian societies were exposed to modernization and Westernization. Changes of family values, however, are not homogeneous across all Asian societies. Tradition, history and culture in each country have affected timing and direction of family values changes throughout modernization, so changes of family values are very heterogeneous across Asian societies.

Family values changes are also very diverse even within a society. Socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions affect value changes differentially among a population in a society. Asian societies are not exception to this.

To capture dynamics of family values changes in Asian societies, Asian family sociologists from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Qatar and Turkey have made efforts to conduct family surveys with the same questions for the last 10 years in the name of Comparative Asian Family Survey(CAFS). Thus this Comparative Asian Family Surveys cover East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Asia, namely all Asian societies. Family values, intergenerational exchanges, family formation history and gender division of labor have been explored in Comparative Asian Family Surveys.

We aim at overviewing changes of family values in Asia for the last 10 years based on Comparative Asian Family Survey data in this paper. Various features of family values such as values and attitudes on marriage, divorce, patriarchy, gender role, women’s paid work, and gender division of household labor are explored by socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions from a comparative perspective. We hope that this paper gives a clear idea on Asian family values change in the 21^st century and contributes to enhancing our knowledge of the dynamics of family values changes in Asian societies.