TY - JOUR
T1 - Singlehood in contemporary Japan
T2 - Rating, dating, and waiting for a good match
AU - Brinton, Mary C.
AU - Mun, Eunmi
AU - Hertog, Ekaterina
N1 - Funding Information:
We appreciate the extremely helpful comments of James Raymo and other participants at the Social Sciences Korea Conference: Family Change and Inequality in East Asia, held at the University of Pennsylvania on December 6‒7, 2019. The quantitative data for this paper were provided by the Japanese marriage agency O-net to Ekaterina Hertog, who received support from a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship. The collection of the 2012 interview data was funded by National Science Foundation grant #SES1123885 to Mary C. Brinton.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Mary C. Brinton, Eunmi Mun & Ekaterina Hertog.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - BACKGROUND Late age at marriage and rising rates of singlehood increasingly characterize East Asian societies. For Japan, these are major contributors to the very low birth rate. OBJECTIVE We analyze two unique data sets: dating records covering a two-year period from one of Japan’s largest marriage agencies and in-depth interviews with 30 highly-educated Japanese singles. The longitudinal nature of the quantitative data allows us to test hypotheses about how single men’s and women’s preferences for partners’ characteristics adjust over time. The qualitative data provides a more fine-grained look at Japanese singles’ partner preferences. METHODS We employ fixed-effects regression models to analyze Japanese men’s and women’s preferences for the relative and absolute education, income, and age of potential marriage partners. RESULTS Both the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that Japanese women continue to highly value men’s income-earning capacity. Men, in contrast, value a partner with moderate income-earning potential. Women’s and men’s preferences for partner’s education are somewhat weaker, and women broaden their educational preference over time. CONCLUSION Japanese men’s and women’s preferences for a potential partner’s characteristics are largely consistent with Becker’s theory of gender-role specialization. But we also find evidence consistent with Oppenheimer’s expectation that men are coming to value women’s income-earning capacity more highly than in the past. CONTRIBUTION We use a unique Japanese data set featuring dating records over a two-year period to examine the appropriateness of theories of marital sorting proposed by Becker and Oppenheimer. Our quantitative analysis is complemented by in-depth interviews with Japanese singles.
AB - BACKGROUND Late age at marriage and rising rates of singlehood increasingly characterize East Asian societies. For Japan, these are major contributors to the very low birth rate. OBJECTIVE We analyze two unique data sets: dating records covering a two-year period from one of Japan’s largest marriage agencies and in-depth interviews with 30 highly-educated Japanese singles. The longitudinal nature of the quantitative data allows us to test hypotheses about how single men’s and women’s preferences for partners’ characteristics adjust over time. The qualitative data provides a more fine-grained look at Japanese singles’ partner preferences. METHODS We employ fixed-effects regression models to analyze Japanese men’s and women’s preferences for the relative and absolute education, income, and age of potential marriage partners. RESULTS Both the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that Japanese women continue to highly value men’s income-earning capacity. Men, in contrast, value a partner with moderate income-earning potential. Women’s and men’s preferences for partner’s education are somewhat weaker, and women broaden their educational preference over time. CONCLUSION Japanese men’s and women’s preferences for a potential partner’s characteristics are largely consistent with Becker’s theory of gender-role specialization. But we also find evidence consistent with Oppenheimer’s expectation that men are coming to value women’s income-earning capacity more highly than in the past. CONTRIBUTION We use a unique Japanese data set featuring dating records over a two-year period to examine the appropriateness of theories of marital sorting proposed by Becker and Oppenheimer. Our quantitative analysis is complemented by in-depth interviews with Japanese singles.
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U2 - 10.4054/DEMRES.2021.44.10
DO - 10.4054/DEMRES.2021.44.10
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85101276449
SN - 1435-9871
VL - 44
SP - 237
EP - 276
JO - Demographic Research
JF - Demographic Research
ER -