ABSTRACT
This book has explored key aspects of the housing system in Japan, identifying how they are deeply embedded socially and economically, and, moreover, bound up reciprocally with patterns and processes of social change in Japan’s postwar era. While each chapter has focused on diverse policy elements, economic developments, social structures, family relations and household meanings and practices, a number of characteristics have consistently re-emerged in consideration of Japan’s specifi c housing system pathway and social history. The tendency for family homes, property assets and housing policy to be increasingly central in the nature of social, political and economic transformations is strongly evident, especially in Japan’s post-bubble environment. In this fi nal chapter we begin by considering more explicitly the unifying forces and traits identifi ed, which link the chapters of the book, in order to initiate some informed speculations on the role of housing and the nature of socio-economic transformations.
