Single Motherhood and Parent-Child Relations in Japan: The Role of Living Arrangements

James Raymo, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Hyunjoon Park, University of Pennsylvania
Miho Iwasawa, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Tokyo

The goal of this paper is to shed light on the implications of single-parenthood in Japan. Using nationally representative survey data, we compare parent-child interactions in single-mother families and two-parent families. We pay particular attention to the ways in which relationships between family structure and parent-child interactions may be moderated by the presence of coresident grandparents. Initial tabulations indicate that several measures of parent-child interactions and parent-child relationship quality are significantly lower for single mothers. We also find some evidence that these differences are greatest for single-mothers who are not coresiding with their parents. These preliminary results suggest that the rapid rise in divorce may have important implications for parent-child relationships in Japan and that the relatively high prevalence of intergenerational coresidence may temper the implications of single-parenthood to some extent.