ABSTRACT
In 1953, long after much modernization and urbanization, 73 percent of the Japanese said that they would adopt someone under the circumstances. One effect of modernization may be to induce individuals to take more trouble to formalize and register their marital unions, and pressure from governments may accelerate the process. Industrialization and modernization evidently bring about a good deal of convergent change in the structure of family arrangements. The ambiguity and uncertainty about many areas of family change are replaced by firm conviction and general agreement over one issue, namely, the decline of absolute parental authority and the concomitant rise in the autonomy of youth that accompany and express the modernization process. The increased independence and autonomy of the young is synchronous with a decline in both the scope and the strength of the authority of parents and elders.
