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AntSoc01


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Bright futures? Young adults' work-life choices in metropolitan Japan 
Convenors:
Annette Schad-Seifert (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)
Nora Kottmann (German Institute for Japanese Studies)
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Chair:
Nora Kottmann (German Institute for Japanese Studies)
Section:
Anthropology and Sociology
Sessions:
Wednesday 25 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels

Short Abstract:

This panel explores the work-life choices of young adults in metropolitan Japan. It focuses on attitudinal changes, the differentiation of gender norms, and new forms of work and family life in the context of changing socio-economic realities.

Long Abstract:

Japan's post-war male breadwinner model, which supposes a specific gendered division of labour at home and gender-segregated forms of employment, is increasingly losing significance as a social norm, giving way to attitudinal changes, the differentiation of gender norms, and new forms of work and family life. Indicators for change are an increase in the proportion of never-married and divorced single persons, married dual-earner couples, full-time househusbands and career women, unmarried mothers and fathers, male part-timers or 'freeters' without steady employment, and other non-heteronormative types of social existence.

The panel brings together anthropological and sociological researchers from Germany, Israel, Japan and the United Kingdom and aims to develop a gender-sensitive framework for analysing agency and capability with regard to work-life choices. Relying in part on economist Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (1992) to consider the divide between an individual's aspirations/expectations and the economic, social, and normative constraints on realizing them, it seems worthwhile to develop a framework for analysing agency and capability in connection with work-life choices. The panel also draws on the notion of 'undoing gender' (Deutsch 2007, Sullivan 2006), which focuses on interactions between state, metropolitan or private business institutions and individual behaviour such as partnership, intimacy, the gendered division of household labour, and the different identities surrounding singlehood. The panel will explore how individuals cope with social norms that are about to lose institutional sustainability. Questions at the core of this panel include how individuals negotiate their life choices as ideal or intended options, whether gender imbalances or gender-specific choices still exist, what kind of consequences individuals face when making specific life choices, and whether there are institutional restrictions or frameworks when choosing a specific life course. Ethnographic case studies and quantitative data will provide insights into individuals' work-life choices in the context of changing socio-economic realities.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Wednesday 25 August, 2021, -