Marriage, Abortion, or Unwed Motherhood? How Women Evaluate Alternative Solutions to Premarital Pregnancies in Japan and the United States

Abstract

In this article, the authors argue that to understand the very low incidence of outside-of-marriage childbearing in contemporary Japan one needs to take into account perceptions of all possible solutions to a premarital pregnancy: marriage, abortion, and childbearing outside wedlock. To demonstrate the particular impact of these perceptions in Japan, the authors compare them with those in the United States, a country where many more children are born outside wedlock. Using mixed methods, the authors demonstrate that for a typical Japanese woman, giving birth outside marriage is the morally inferior solution. For many American women, in contrast, choosing to bear a child outside wedlock rather than rushing into a marriage or having an abortion is often seen as a sign of greater maturity. These preferences play an important role in maintaining the norm of childbearing within marriage in Japan and also contribute to our understanding of how this norm has waned in the United States.