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In 1958, Suzanne and Ezra Vogel embedded themselves in a Tokyo
suburban community, interviewing six middle-class families
regularly for a year. Their research led to Japan's New Middle
Class, a classic work on the sociology of Japan. Now, Suzanne Hall
Vogel's compelling sequel traces the evolution of Japanese society
over the ensuing decades through the lives of three of these
ordinary yet remarkable women and their daughters and
granddaughters. Vogel contends that the role of the professional
housewife constrained Japanese middle-class women in the postwar
era-and yet it empowered them as well. Precisely because of fixed
gender roles, with women focusing on the home and children while
men focused on work, Japanese housewives had remarkable authority
and autonomy within their designated realm. Wives and mothers now
have more options than their mothers and grandmothers did, but they
find themselves unprepared to cope with this new era of choice.
These gripping biographies poignantly illustrate the strengths and
the vulnerabilities of professional housewives and of families
facing social change and economic uncertainty in contemporary
Japan.
In 1958, Suzanne and Ezra Vogel embedded themselves in a Tokyo
suburban community, interviewing six middle-class families
regularly for a year. Their research led to Japan's New Middle
Class, a classic work on the sociology of Japan. Now, Suzanne Hall
Vogel's compelling sequel traces the evolution of Japanese society
over the ensuing decades through the lives of three of these
ordinary yet remarkable women and their daughters and
granddaughters. Vogel contends that the role of the professional
housewife constrained Japanese middle-class women in the postwar
era-and yet it empowered them as well. Precisely because of fixed
gender roles, with women focusing on the home and children while
men focused on work, Japanese housewives had remarkable authority
and autonomy within their designated realm. Wives and mothers now
have more options than their mothers and grandmothers did, but they
find themselves unprepared to cope with this new era of choice.
These gripping biographies poignantly illustrate the strengths and
the vulnerabilities of professional housewives and of families
facing social change and economic uncertainty in contemporary
Japan.
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.
This classic study on the sociology of Japan remains the only
in-depth treatment of the Japanese middle class. Now in a
50th-anniversary edition that includes a new introduction by
William W. Kelly, this seminal work paints a rich and complex
picture of the life of the salary man 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 guaranteed life-long
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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