Does Parenthood Foster Traditionalism? Childrearing and Alterations in Gender and Family Attitudes in Japan

Prior studies of gender and family attitudes indicate that the arrival of a child, a major life-course event, may contribute to shifts in these attitudes. Virtually no research, however, examines attitudinal changes accompanying parenthood in non-Western contexts, where childrearing experiences are likely to differ. Using longitudinal data and fixed-effects models, we investigate how having a child, as well as having a daughter versus a son, is associated with changes in attitudes toward gender and family issues in Japan, a country known for its highly gendered distribution of child-related responsibilities within families. Contrary to previous findings that parenthood has a “traditionalizing” effect in the United States and other Western societies, we find that women in Japan generally become less supportive of traditional gender roles as their number of children increases. They also become more approving of divorce after having a daughter. Conversely, Japanese men experience fewer changes, although they do become less positive about the value of jobs for women with additional children and more negative about a child’s impact on the couple after adding a son. We argue that the relatively high tolerance of dissonance between attitudes and behaviors in East Asian cultures weakens the psychological motivation for the Japanese to align their views with their increasingly gendered behaviors upon entering parenthood. At the same time, women’s experience with greater gender inequality within the household provides them with more incentives to be critical of gendered practices and institutions, resulting in less traditional attitudes as they have more children.