@article{oai:tsukuba.repo.nii.ac.jp:00041839,
 author = {LEI, Xiao},
 journal = {国際日本研究, Journal of International and advanced Japanese studies},
 month = {Feb},
 note = {Japan has experienced significant demographic shifts and is regarded as an aging society with a significant low birth rate. Two decades ago, Japanese women who lived outside marriage and did not engage in child rearing were seen to be “good-for-nothing” and were likely to be socially stigmatized. Terms such as “Christmas cake”, “parasite single”, and “makeinu (loser dog)” have become popular and are used to refer to single women with pejorative connotation in Japanese society. Nonetheless, now more and more Japanese women are spending their lives as singles, even though marriage and motherhood are still significantly valued in women’s lives. The subjects of this research are Japanese single women who are over 30 without children. The purpose of this paper is to explore their perceptions of marriage, childlessness and being single. Adopting a qualitative research method, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with forty-three single Japanese women who were over 30, unmarried and without children. Results suggested that women’s intentions of marriage and views on childlessness differed according to age and financial capacity. Family relations, love and working experience affected women’s views in diverse ways. Despite nominal inconveniences in daily life, women generally expressed their satisfaction of living as singles. At the same time, the social environment has changed and seemed to greatly benefit single women, while traditional gender roles are still entrenched and internalized by some women. The author suggests that women staying single is not necessarily resistance to marriage per se, but could be seen as an alternative way to live a happy life.},
 pages = {15--29},
 title = {<Article>"What We Want is to be Happy rather than Marrying" : Exploring Japanese Single Women's Perceptions on Marriage, Childlessness and Being Single},
 volume = {9},
 year = {2017}
}