Mortality Decline and Japanese Family Structure

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Abstract
Family structure and living arrangements in Japan have changed considerably in the twentieth century. Increasing proportions of households are composed of nuclear families or single individuals, rather than the traditionally ideal stem families of two married couples of different generations. These changes are quite dramatic when one considers that rapid mortality decline in Japan has had the effect of increasing the probability of survival, so that such ideal living arrangements could be achieved more often. This article documents the effects of mortality change on the probabilities of survival for various family members in Japan. Information from Japanese life tables from 1899 to 1980 is used to calculate the probabilities of a child's survival to age fifteen, of parents' survival to the child's fifteenth birthday, of grandparents' survival, and of the survival of the family as a whole.

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