ABSTRACT
The trend toward having fewer children and the greater life expectancy of individuals jointly contribute to increases in the average age of the population in industrialized societies. This chapter examines historical and cultural factors of Japan with reference to those of the United States and provides some similarities and differences in living arrangements of the elderly. It discusses implications of changing living arrangements in Japan in the direction of those in the United States. Extended family systems, including the stem family, are not prevalent in the contemporary United States. Long after achieving industrialization, a considerable number of Japanese families take the form of stem families. Even in 1980, 20.7 percent of all households were “other forms of kin-linked households,” which were, in most cases, stem families at that time. Japan has higher proportions of three-generational households there than in the United States. The chapter outlines the factors that account for the difference between the two countries.
