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An alternative version of the second demographic transition? The link between marriage and fertility and changing pathways to first marriage in Japan

Ryohei Mogi, University of Oxford
James Raymo, Princeton University
Setsuya Fukuda, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research
Miho Iwasawa, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research
Shohei Yoda, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research

Growth in cohabiting unions and non-marital childbearing sits at the core of research on the second demographic transition and related discussions of family bifurcation and children’s diverging destinies. How should we understand these two highly influential and purportedly universal depictions of family change in low-fertility countries where the link between marriage and childbearing remains strong? We address this question in Japan, a country where fertility has been below replacement level for half a century but childbearing outside of marriage remains negligible. Using data from large national surveys, we describe growing heterogeneity in pathways to first marriage, focusing on the temporal ordering of cohabitation, pregnancy, marriage, and first childbirth. We pay particular attention to socioeconomic differentials in patterns of family formation in an effort to assess the relevance of diverging destinies in the absence of growth in non-marital childbearing. Our preliminary descriptive analyses show a cross-cohort increase in variation in pathways to family formation in Japan, reflecting an increase in premarital cohabitation and its relationship with premarital conception. These changes appear to be consistent with a pattern of disadvantage.

Keywords: Family demography, Fertility and childbirth

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session 185. Family Transitions in Longitudinal Perspective