First steps to independent travel for children in Japan

E. Owen D. Waygood, Satoshi Nakao and Ayako Taniguchi

Chapter 25 in Handbook on Transport in Asia, 2025, pp 499-518 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In many countries, children's active and independent travel has significantly decreased over the past few decades. Although Japan has also seen a decrease in recent decades, most children from about six years old do at least some active and independent travel. In this chapter we discuss a number of related phenomena on children's travel in Japan. First an overview of recent research on children's travel in Japan is given. Then historical changes are introduced. Newspaper articles related to children's mobility are used to bring insight into how children's mobility has changed as the transport system has modernized over the years. Finally, the concept of the “first errand” (Hajimete no otsukai) as a cultural phenomenon, where children are asked to go run an errand for the family, is described and discussed. Threats to this cultural phenomenon are proposed and explained.

Keywords: Children's independent mobility; Hajimete-no-otsukai; First errand; Japan; Children's travel; Urbanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035309238
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