15 - 17 MARCH 2000
BONN UNIVERSITY, GERMANY
Demography & Value Change
The aim of the conference entitled 'Demographic Developments and Value Change in Contemporary Industrial Societies: East Asian and Western societies in comparative perspectives' was to analyse demographic and value change in their interrelatedness in one particular country and to discuss the results from a comparative perspective.
By AXEL KLEIN
Modernization is no longer considered to be a single process inevitably leading to the stage that Western industrial nations have reached. Instead, nowadays many different forms of modernization, temporal and spatial, are being stressed. But even though there are remarkable differences between earlier and present theories on modernization one striking similarity still remains: notwithstanding their huge economic and social achievements, East Asian countries are hardly ever included in the research and construction of sociological theories on modernity. This neglect has produced two simplified pictures: developments in East Asia are either considered to be a mere following-in-the-footsteps of the West or, conversely, to the contrary, are interpreted to exemplify the continuity of timeless Asian structures in a modern guise. By challenging both views, it was the aim of the conference to analyse demographic developments and value change in their interrelatedness in one particular country and to discuss the results from a comparative perspective.On the whole, the contributions confirmed that there are general trends in demography and value changes that can he observed in every industrialized country, although timing, scope, and impact do differ. Fertility, for instance, resumed its decline during the latter half of the 1960s in most Western countries only to be followed by East Asian nations about ten years later. A change in marriage behaviour rather than a reduction in the family size seems to be the major factor behind this change. In turn, the trend towards later or non-marriage is related to value and attitudinal changes among women, who no longer take their established gender role of home-making for granted. This fits into the general picture of a pluralization of life-styles in all countries, although with higher rates of cohabitation and single-parent families its degree still seems to be higher in Western societies. These changes generated a controversy over the question of whether to remain single is to be interpreted positively as an indicator of individualism and self-actualization, as most Western contributors did, or, as M. Yamada put it in his paper, negatively as a sign of parasitic attitudes toward society and the family.
Teenage fertility
The latter shows that many speakers and discussants also stressed the continuing importance of country-specific peculiarities. Regarding fertility trends, the problem of sex-specific induced abortions in the Republic of Korea, the observance of 'good' or 'bad' years for giving birth according to the specific sign of the zodiac throughout all of East Asia, but especially in Taiwan, a high prevalence of extramarital and teenage fertility in the US, or the topic of extremely high rates of women remaining childless in Germany were taken up. Turning to values and attitudes, the minor role of religion or a still quite positive attitude toward marriage and familial old-age-care in Japan in contrast to Western patterns were emphasized. In Japan, too, a shift from conformistic to a combination of idealistic, individualistic, and hedonistic values started from the late 1970s, and has even accelerated in pace during the recent economic crisis.
In a nutshell, the conference did produce results which confirmed the assumption of an ongoing modernization process that is common to all counties in its general features, but is highly modified when it comes to detail. A publication with all papers is scheduled to be brought out by autumn 2000 in the series JapanArchiv edited by the Department of Modern Japanese Studies, Bonn University. Not resting solely in publications the results will also form an important basis for an ongoing research project on 'Social Attitudes and Structures during the Modernization Process: Japan on its way toward a new modernity?' carried out at the same department. It remains to be seen whether the general conclusions of the conference also apply to other aspects of society in particular. *
Dr Axel Klein, University of Bonn.
E-mail: axel.klein@uni-bonn.de