Changes in the Relationship among Family, Housing, and Welfare in Japanese Cities

Keywords: family contract, housing, family, welfare, the Tokyo suburbs
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 13

Abstract

Japan’s society is rapidly aging, and this shift comes with many associated problems. These problems include increasingly vacant housing in mid-sized cities and in metropolitan areas’ outer suburbs, as well as a lack of access to fresh foods, transportation services, and welfare facilities within walkable distances. Quality of life is also affected for older adults living in the areas facing these issues. Such aging and its related problems reflect a complex, long-term interrelationship among institutional, habitual, and individual circumstances. Notably, the institutional factors cannot provide a simple explanation for the rise in vacant housing in Japanese cities. In Japan, family members have traditionally provided a large part of the welfare needs. Typically, the spouse of the household head would assume these roles. In exchange, the children would then succeed the parents’ real estate. This form of “family contract” has contributed to maintaining housing and welfare in Japan for many decades. Societal changes, however, deteriorated the interrelationship of family, housing, and welfare. This study examines how this interrelationship has changed over three generations and analyzes the changes’ underlying triggers. We conducted semi-structured interviews with residents in105 households in commercial districts, suburban housing estates, and rural areas in Ryugasaki City, in the Tokyo suburbs. The results showed that in commercial and rural areas, family contracts had worked efficiently until the previous generation. Older couples, however, now often lived and ran their business by themselves. Their adult children would not succeed the real estate or the family businesses.