The Changing Family in Comparative Perspective

Economic development and globalization are affecting families in most countries of the world. Are families in Asia responding to modernizing forces by becoming more like families in the West? Or have they produced unique responses to modernization? This book compares family patterns in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries with those found in the United States. The essays use surveys and censuses to compare Asian and American patterns of marriage, divorce, women's roles, men's contribution to housework, and patterns of contact and exchange between adults and their parents. The results suggest that patterns of family formation and dissolution in Asia are converging with those in the US in many respects, but that intergenerational relationships remain distinct.