Research Projects

Building Childcare and Work Support for Women based on Scientific Evidence from the Perspective of Families in East Asia

Summary and Aims of the Project

Japan, China, and Korea share many common features geographically, historically, and culturally in the (East) Asian cultural sphere. For instance, while women in all three countries are recently expected to participate in society, the idea of the dutiful wife and devoted mother (良妻賢母 in Japanese, 賢妻良母 in Chinese, and 賢母良妻 in Korea) still persists in these countries. This imposes a social issue on mothers who have to balance their postpartum return to their workplaces with their childcaring responsibilities. What kind of resources for childcare do women in Japan, China, and South Korea use to address this issue under their respective cultures? How does this affect the well-being of working mothers and the development of healthy bodies and minds for their children? In order to compare the similarities and differences of the three countries from an international perspective and to provide mutually useful information and effective solutions, this project launches a joint research collaborated with researchers and experts from each country, and examines and solves common social problems for all three countries.

In addition, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic not only directly affects our lives, but also has the effect of amplifying the past problems. For example, throughout the world including these three countries under these severe conditions, the risks of domestic violence (DV) and child abuse from their spouses are increasing internationally as a result of various factors such as spending a longer time with their families, stress caused by the quarantine, the closing of schools, working from home, and fears about infection. Also, there is the problem that mothers cannot play active roles in society, because the stay-home activities of their husbands and children increased the mothers' workloads more than before. This project carries out consecutive surveys on informants once every three months under the above backdrop taking into account socio-cultural factors (public health, views on child rearing, etc.) in each country. At the same time, this project takes into account socio-cultural factors (ideas of public health, parenting, etc.) in each country. This enables us to provide the required supports to them based on evidences and to propose a new lifestyle in the "with-corona and after-corona" era.

Furthermore, we are conducting a survey on the situation of families in the Islamic world, where there is a lack of enough knowledge in the field of developmental psychology, with the use of survey schemes for Japan, China and Korea and with the cooperation of researchers in Indonesia. In recent years, there have been reports that show the active participation of women in Islamic society. However, there are not sufficient objective data and psychological approaches regarding differences in family views and conditions of childcare between Islamic societies and Japan, China, Korea and the Western world. This research project tries to conduct sufficient field researches and establish more local (indigenous) frameworks.

A home-visit survey in an urban area of China (our project conducts continuous observation and keeps records of the daily behavior of parents and children.)

Research Projects