IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/jpneco/v48y2022i2-4p107-128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Making and unmaking of housework in Rural Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Fumi Iwashima

Abstract

This paper highlights the process where the notion of "housework" was established under the developing market economy in the 1950s and 1960s rural Japan. Analyzing time-use surveys conducted by rural women, this paper asks which tasks rural women designated as housework in their daily work and life, and how housework was experienced to Japanese rural families. Especially in the 1950s, neither the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry or women’s club members had a clear understanding of what housework entailed. The daily activities that are considered housework differed in each survey. The time-use surveys revealed that farmers’ attitude toward housework shifted from considering it as the junior wife’s chores, which should be done in her spare time, to shareable housework, which were worth doing in the working time during work hours to support labor reproduction. Although gendered labor division was conserved, categorizing women’s housework validated junior wives’ work in a rural Japanese context.

Suggested Citation

  • Fumi Iwashima, 2022. "Making and unmaking of housework in Rural Japan," Japanese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2-4), pages 107-128, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:jpneco:v:48:y:2022:i:2-4:p:107-128
    DOI: 10.1080/2329194X.2022.2154228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/2329194X.2022.2154228
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/2329194X.2022.2154228?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mes:jpneco:v:48:y:2022:i:2-4:p:107-128. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/MJES19 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.