Asia's New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies

Asia’s New Mothers, through a focus on childcare, offers a comparative regional analysis unique in English-language sources of changing gender roles in East and Southeast Asia. Taking into consideration the historical and cultural differences and similarities among the societies in the region, the authors employ indepth researches of people’s everyday experiences. The research was conducted between 2001 and 2003 in six societies in East and Southeast Asia – Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. While each makes its own unique contributions, most of the essays are informed by two theoretical focal points: modernization and gender and globalization and gender.

Ochiai Emiko is professor of sociology at Kyoto University, working in the field of family sociology, gender studies, and historical demography. Her publications include The Japanese Family System in Transition (LTCB International Library Foundation, 1997), Modern Family and Feminism (Keiso Shobo, 1989), and The Family and Gender in Asia (co-editor: Keiso Shobo, 2007).
Barbara Molony, a professor of Japanese history at Santa Clara University, is the co-editor of Gendering Modern Japanese History (Harvard 2005) and author of articles on women’s political rights, gender and employment, and the politics of maternalism. She is currently working on the intersection of gender, dress and nationalism in modern Japanese history.