One or two pathways to individual modernity? The effects of education on family formation among women in Japan and Germany

Bernhard Nauck and Rokuro Tabuchi

Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 2012, vol. 10, issue 1, 49-76

Abstract: Two prominent theses on social change concur with regard to the on-goingdevelopment of family systems in the process of general social change: the modelof the “second demographic transition”, suggested by the demographers van deKaa and Lesthaeghe; and the model of “family change”, proposed by the crossculturalpsychologist Kağıtçıbaşı. This paper presents an empirical test based onan analysis of family change in Japan, a collectivistic, yet modernised society;and in Germany, a society characterised by ‘Western’ individualism. Ourempirical test is based on 12 cumulated, representative surveys from these twosocieties, which together cover the family formation processes of 49,983 womenborn between 1915 and 1985. For both Germany and Japan, we examine theinfluence of educational inequality on family formation, and explore how it haschanged over a period of 60 years, by means of multivariate Cox regressionanalyses. The two models emphasise different aspects of the change in the familyformation process: although the changes point in the direction predicted by thesecond demographic transition model, the differences between the two societieshave remained stable or have even widened, in line with the family change model.

Date: 2012
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