Married Women's Attitudes toward Gender Role and Work and Their Influence on Children: Analysis of 2014 "Empowerment of Women" data

In order to find a way out from the situation facing the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s political slogan "Empowerment of Woman," which appears to be not progressing remarkably, it is indispensable to grasp the actuality, diversity, causes, and influences of Japanese women's attitudes toward gender role and work. This paper tries to examine the distribution of attitude types among married women, factors of the differentiation of types, and influences of attitude types on their children, using the "Empowerment of Women" questionnaire survey data conducted in 2014. The main findings are: first, in the 2014 data, the attitude type characterized by the conservative gender role attitude and the negative attitude toward work accounts for one-third of married women and is the highest. The percentage of this attitude type is larger than in a past survey data conducted in 1995. Second, the factors related to the differentiation of attitudes types include self-evaluation of job skills, the way of spending spare time, and the importance attached to the family life. Third, attitude types have a different influence on their children according to the gender composition of the children.