ABSTRACT
What is the state of the Japanese family today? Many of the present trends are not new; moreover, they are often similar to what is happening in other industrialized countries. The typical Japanese child is, as were his or her parents, likely to be born into a nuclear family household with parents who are legally married. According to the government statistics website, taking only those private households with children under 18, 80 percent of children were in nuclear family households with a couple and children; another 16.4 percent were in households which were not nuclear but made up of related members (mostly three-generation households); and another 3.6 percent were in single-parent households.1 Children born out of wedlock made up only 2 percent of the total as of 2007 (Naikakufu 2009, 9).
