The family structure in contemporary Japan

The applicability of models of the family developed in the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology to the modern Japanese family is considered. "Our aim is to understand the contemporary Japanese family from two perspectives: the family as an economic unit and the family as a social security provider based on the arrangement and analysis of materials and statistics concerning current structure, form, type, and size of the contemporary Japanese family." Data are primarily from the annual survey undertaken by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on living conditions.