ABSTRACT
How far does the family in Shitayama-cho, today conform to the ideal 'Japanese family system' we have been describing? The first and most easily measurable aspect is family size and composition. It will be remembered that Table 6 (p. 22) showed certain ways in which Shitayama-cho was more 'urban' than the urban areas of Japan as a whole, in that it carried even further the urban trends towards a smaller average household size, a smaller proportion of three-generation households, a smaller proportion of children, and a larger proportion of lodgers and employees unrelated to the families with which they were living.
