Introduction to the special collection on family changes and inequality in East Asia

Abstract

BACKGROUNDEast Asian societies have experienced rapid social changes, among which the extraordinary expansion of higher education for both women and men, rising economic inequality, and increasing labor market uncertainty should be particularly relevant to family changes. At the same time, gender inequality and traditional gender norms still prevail and shape family life in the region. The eight articles in this special collection share the common interest of how families in East Asia have evolved against a backdrop of growing economic inequality and persistent gender inequality -among other key forces affecting family life -across a variety of family-related outcomes: from singlehood, marriage intentions, and dating, through fertility, the time use of adolescents and parents with young children, and women's careers, to intergenerational coresidence and the life satisfaction of older parents. RESULTSOur eight studies look at connected but distinctive outcomes related to family life, and collectively demonstrate the relevance of increased labor market uncertainty and the continuing male breadwinner norm to emerging patterns of family behavior in East Asia. They illustrate specific ways in which East Asian families are shaped by the joint forces of economic inequality and gender inequality. CONTRIBUTIONThis volume highlights the complexity and heterogeneity of contemporary East Asian families, inviting family and demography researchers to conduct more studies on underresearched family behaviors such as cohabitation and nonmarital births and to revisit the conventional perception that family ties are strong and family support is readily available in East Asia.

Effectiveness of a nurse‐led mHealth app to prevent excessive gestational weight gain among overweight and obese women: A randomized controlled trial

“…Regarding the environmental cultural factors in SCT, family commitments often restrict women's time for practicing healthy behaviors. In Asian culture, women often live with and care for their husband's entire extended family (Park, 2021). Often, women worry that exercising outdoors or maintaining social relations with friends may negatively affect their family (Faucher & Mirabito, 2020).…”

Premarital cohabitation and the gendered division of household labor in China

“…Since the 1970s, cohabitation has surged in Western societies, drawing attention from demographers and sociologists. However, cohabitation remains understudied in East Asian countries, mainly because it has been assumed that premarital cohabitation is not socially accepted in the region and because of the lack of appropriate data (Park, 2021). In recent decades, however, East Asian societies have experienced rapid changes, which have produced new patterns of family formation, including the increasing prevalence of premarital cohabitation (Mogi et al, 2023; Raymo et al, 2015).…”

An exploratory study of women’s work values in the Chinese context: a grounded-theory approach

“…Similarly, awareness of gender roles and other workplace issues also varies from East Asian to Western countries (Singh and Gaur, 2020;Pattnaik and Panda, 2020). In Western countries, traditional gender role stereotypes have been significantly mitigated by the progress of modernization, yet traditional gender roles and gender inequality are still prevalent in East Asian countries (Hori and Kamo, 2018;Park, 2021). The distinctions in gender roles and culture between Eastern and Western women may correspond to differences in their values, leading to different attitudes and behaviors in career progress (Yi et al, 2015).…”