The Intersection of Socioeconomic Status, Gender, and Maternal Employment in Shaping Parenting Practices in Japan

• In Event: 30620 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Gender Inequality

Abstract

This paper examines the intersection of socioeconomic class, gender, and maternal employment in shaping parenting styles in Japan, using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital as a theoretical lens. Drawing on data from the 21st Century Longitudinal Survey of the 2001 Birth Cohort (n = 30,406), latent class analysis (LCA) identifies four distinct parenting style clusters: High-Investment Traditionalists, Home-Based Upbringing of Girls, Highly Engaged Academics, and Low-Educated Traditionalists. These styles reflect variations in parental education, maternal employment status, and child gender, with significant implications for children’s developmental outcomes.
The findings reveal that families with higher parental education and homemaker mothers tend to adopt traditional yet resource-intensive approaches to child-rearing, while employed mothers with medium education focus more on home-based activities, particularly for girls. Conversely, highly educated families with employed mothers emphasize structured academic and extracurricular engagement, with girls over-represented. Families with lower parental education and non-employed mothers provide limited academic resources but prioritize peer engagement, reflecting constrained traditional parenting practices.
This study contributes to the literature by moving beyond the singular focus on “concerted cultivation” to develop a nuanced typology of parenting styles in Japan. It highlights how cultural capital intersects with class and gender to perpetuate educational inequalities. The findings underscore the need for policy interventions that address these disparities and promote equitable access to developmental opportunities for all children.

Authors

• Frederick Philipp Fabian de Moll, Bielefeld University

• Akihide Inaba, Keio University