Changes of Family Values and Behavior in Four East Asian Societies Based on Eass 2006 and Eass 2016

This paper introduces the East Asian Social Survey project and reports the changes/constancy of one's family values and behavior in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan based on the data of EASS 2006 and EASS 2016. EASS launched in 2003 and consists of four research teams in East Asia: Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), Korean General Social Survey (KGSS), and Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS). Four teams made common questions focusing on one's family values and behavior in East Asia, incorporated the module into a nation-wide social survey conducted by each team in 2006. The module includes gender role attitudes, patriarchal attitudes, values on childrearing, values on marriage and divorce, mate selection, marital relationship, family activities, and intergenerational support. Based on EASS 2006, the proportion of people who believe that “the authority of the family in a family should be respected under any circumstances” was smallest in Japan (53%), compared with China (84%), Korea (84%) and Taiwan (80%). In the last ten years, that proportion further dropped both for men and women in Japan. In 2006, the proportion of two-earner couples was largest in China (66%), compared with that of in Taiwan (57%), in Japan (50%) and in South Korea (48%). While Chinese husbands did housework most, Japanese husbands did it least in 2006. Not only Japanese married men, but also unmarried men and women in Japan did housework least among four societies, then. This paper overview the salient changes in one's family values and behavior across four societies in the last ten years and discusses the possible factors which had led those changes and the probable impacts those changes would bring about.