ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on conceptually sort out different types of individualization in East Asia and demonstrates their salient characteristics based on survey data collected from three cities of Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo. The concept of individualization indicates a categorical shift in relations between an individual and the society. The individualization theorists give an account of the relationship between individuals and social determinants that is more complex than the either/or models of conventional social science. They see individualization as a form of emancipation from particular constraints. According to individualization theorists, traditions and groups continue to play a role in individual experience. Individualization consists of two distinct dimensions of emancipation, one is about the mode of operation and the other is about the goal between collective interests and self-interests. By crossing these two dimensions of individualization as two main axes, they constructed four types of individualization.
