This book is the 6th volume of the Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The book focuses on how economic developments changed the everyday lives of ordinary women in early-modern and modern Japan. Different from precedent gender studies, the spotlight here is on the daily activities and structural positions of women rather than feminist movements or activities of elite women. Using demography, anthropometrics, and labour economics, this book explicates childcare, physical development of girls, and women's labour migration. The dynamics of ordinary women in prewar Japan may change deep-rooted images of women as oppressed beings. Using quantitative data multi-dimensionally with the latest statistical analysis methods, this book shows how Japanese economic historians can contribute to historians of gender and family who are interested in early-modern and modern Japan.

The first part consists of four chapters that discuss women migrant workers in the Tokugawa period, women's work, and family strategies in the underdeveloped regions of the country, conflicts between child-rearing and women's work on family farms, and living standards of teenaged girls in early twentieth-century Japan. Those chapters provide a bridge between economic historians and feminist historians and articulate new research fields for both. The second part, comprising four book reviews, illustrates how the gender concept has been adopted in family and gender historiography in Japan.

Translates recent achievements in gender and family issues in Japanese economic history for a wide readership Focuses on activities of ordinary Japanese women, their contribution to economic development, and changes in their lives Combines demography, anthropometrics, labour economics, and comparative studies for historiography of gender and family in Japan

Autorentext

Editors:
Nobuko Okuda is a professor of Nagoya City University. She obtained a Ph.D. in social history from the University of Warwick in 1984. Her main research field is the gender and social history of modern and contemporary Britain.

Tetsuhiko Takai is an associate professor of economic history at Hokkaido University. He obtained a Ph.D. in social science from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 1999. His main research field is the economic and business history of France and Francophone Asia-Africa from the nineteenth century onwards.

Inhalt
Part I Perspective on the History of Women and Family in Japanese Economic Development.- 1 The Labour Market and Labour Migration in Small Post Towns in Early Modern Japan: The Relationship between a Town and its Outlying Villages in the Northeastern Domain of Nihonmatsu in the Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries(Miyuki Takahashi).- 2 Economic Development and Labour Supply in Underdeveloped Regions: An Analysis of the Labour Supply of Domestic Servants in Northern Akita Prefecture, Japan, 19101924(Masahiro Ogiyama).- 3 Childrearing Methods and Decreased Growth: An Examination of Infant Health in the Farming Communities of Taish Japan (1912-1926)(Kazunori Murakoshi).- 4 Changes in Female Height and Age of Menarche in Modern Japan, 1870s-1980s: Reconsideration of Living Standards during the Interwar Period (Ken'ichi Tomobe).- Part II Book Reviews.- 5 Review of Satomi Kurosu (ed.), Rekishi Jinkgaku kara mita Kekkon, Rikon, Saikon (Marriage, Divorce and Re-marriage from the Perspective of Historical Demography) (Motoyasu Takahashi).- 6 Review of Chikako Kat, Kindai Nihon no Kokumin Tg to Jend (National Integration and Gender in Modern Japan (Kazue Enoki).- 7 Review of Hiroko Nagano and Yko Matsumoto (ed.) Jendashi Sosho 6 Keizai to Shohi Shakai (Gender History Series, Vol. 6: Consumer Society and the Economy)(Manabu Ozeki).- 8 Review of Toshiko Himeoka, Mayuho Hasegawa, et al., Jenda (Kindai Yoroppa no Tankyu 11)(Gender: In Search of Modern Europe 11)(Nobuko Okuda).- Index.