Japan&#039;s New Middle Class

Ezra F. Vogel

doi:10.5771/9781442221963

Summary

This classic study on the sociology of Japan remains the only in-depth treatment of the Japanese middle class. Now in a fiftieth-anniversary edition that includes a new foreword by William W. Kelly, this seminal work paints a rich and complex picture of the life of the salaryman and his family.

In 1958, Suzanne and Ezra Vogel embedded themselves in a Tokyo suburb, living among and interviewing six middle-class families regularly for a year. Tracing the rapid postwar economic growth that led to hiring large numbers of workers who were provided lifelong employment, the authors show how this phenomenon led to a new social class—the salaried men and their families. It was a well-educated group that prepared their children rigorously for the same successful corporate or government jobs they held. Secure employment and a rising standard of living enabled this new middle class to set the dominant pattern of social life that influenced even those who could not share it, a pattern that remains fundamental to Japanese society today.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2013
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-2371-4
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-2196-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 346
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Foreword No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. 1. The Double Structure No access
  2. The Setting: Mamachi No access
2. 1. The Successful Businessman No access
  2. The Independent Professional No access
  3. The Shopkeeper No access
  4. The Salary Man No access
3. 1. Preparing for and Taking Examinations No access
  2. The Family’s Contribution: Maternal Involvement No access
  3. The School’s Contribution: Teacher Involvement No access
  4. Mitigating the Harshness No access
  5. The Hypertrophy of Examinations No access
  6. Achievement Without Rivalry No access
1. 1. The Ordered Life No access
  2. The Limits of Frugality No access
  3. The Freedom to Shop No access
2. 1. The National Identity No access
  2. The Role of the Citizen No access
  3. Salary and the Moderation of Alienation No access
3. 1. The Separate Communities of Husbands, Wives, and Children No access
  2. The Narrow World No access
  3. Techniques of Social Control No access
4. 1. Loyalty No access
  2. Competence No access
  3. A Major Variation: Aesthetic Values No access
  4. The Moral Basis of the Salary Man No access
1. 1. The Concept of Ie No access
  2. The Branch No access
  3. The Decline of the Ie Authority and Welfare No access
  4. Symbolic Remnants No access
  5. The Decline of Family Principles No access
2. 1. Creeping Co-operation in the Home No access
  2. Housework: The Daily Round No access
  3. Housework: Inglorious and Glorious No access
3. 1. The Tradition of “Male Dominance” No access
  2. Maintenance of Decentralized Authority No access
  3. The Nature and Exercise of the Husband’s Authority No access
  4. The Art of Husband Management No access
  5. The Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law No access
4. 1. The Household Unit No access
  2. The Basic Alignment: Mother and Children vs. Father No access
  3. Husband and Wife: Increasing Privacy and Intimacy No access
  4. Coalitions with Grandparents No access
5. 1. The Basic Relationship: Mutual Dependency of Mother and Child No access
  2. Variations on a Theme: Birth Order, Sex, and Parentage No access
  3. The Father No access
  4. Getting the Child to Understand No access
  5. Getting the Child’s Co-operation in Study No access
1. 1. The Transitional Order No access
  2. The Nature of the New Order No access
  3. The Diffusion of the New Order No access
1. 1. A New Confidence in Old Mamachi No access
  2. Salary Without Visions No access
  3. Approaching Affluence No access
  4. The Growth of National Pride No access
  5. “My Home-ism”: Old Wine in New Bottles No access
2. 1. Economic Progress, National and Family Pride No access
  2. Predominance of the Salaryman Way of Life No access
  3. Strains in the Salaryman’s Life No access
  4. Hypertrophy of the Examination System No access
  5. Ever-Declining Ie: Nuclear Families and Increasing Individualism No access
  6. Women’s Liberation, Mamachi Style No access
  7. Changing Expectations for Marriage: New Ideas, Old Habits No access
  8. Child-Training in an Era of Weakened Authority No access
  9. Beyond Success No access
Afterword No access Pages 283 - 288
Appendix No access Pages 289 - 300
Notes No access Pages 301 - 328
Selected Bibliography No access Pages 329 - 332
Index No access Pages 333 - 346