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Social Science Japan Journal Vol. 15, No.

1, pp 5374 2012 Published online June 9, 2011

doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyr016

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Housing Histories and Intergenerational Dynamics in Tokyo


Misa IZUHARA and Ray FORREST*
The housing landscape of Tokyo has shifted dramatically from a housing shortage immediately after World War II, to an urban sprawl driven by the salaried mens dream of a single-family home, to the more recent popularity of high-rise living. Tokyo as a global megacity provides a distinctive picture given its density, culture and changing economic fortunes in the postwar period. This article draws on qualitative research conducted in Tokyo among home-owning families over three generations, exploring the links between housing and family relations in the context of changing housing and labour markets. The article provides two housing narratives highlighting different experiences and strategies of families over generations. These narratives not only capture key elements of socio-economic change in Japan since the end of the War, but also illustrate the contrasting experiences of different families, particularly in relation to the interaction between housing and employment.
Keywords: housing; three generations; housing history; family strategies; Tokyo.

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1. Introduction
Tokyo has experienced dramatic changes in the postwar period as the powerhouse of a dynamic Japanese economy which, until the re-emergence of China, dominated the East Asian region. The ingredients of, and explanations for, the postwar Japanese miracle are well documented (see Johnson 1982; Ohmae 1982), as are the distinctive features of its particular form of welfare capitalism (Dore 2000). Until the bursting of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, sustained economic growth combined with a regime of secure employment allowed the typical Tokyo household to experience a long and benign social and nancial environment. The older generation, emerging from the disruptions and deprivations of the World War II, had witnessed the rapid recovery of the Japanese economy and social framework with expanding job opportunities. Their children, the baby boomers of the late 1940s, were the main beneciaries of state-directed developmentalism and the rise of the Japanese corporate giants. Against this background, and until the economic crises of the 1990s, rapidly rising land values meant that those able to purchase real estate were likely to accumulate substantial

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Misa IZUHARA is Reader at the School for Policy Studies, the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interests include housing and social change, ageing and intergenerational relations, and comparative social policy. Her recent publications include Housing, Care and Inheritance (Routledge, 2009) and Ageing and Intergenerational Relations: Family Reciprocity from a Global Perspective (The Policy Press, 2010). She can be reached by e-mail at M.Izuhara@bristol.ac.uk. Ray FORREST is Chair Professor of Housing and Urban Studies at City University of Hong Kong and Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Bristol. His research interests include social change in the contemporary city, social policy and urbanisation in East Asia and housing policy. His most recent publication (with Yip Ngai-ming) is Housing Markets and the Global Financial Crisis: The Uneven Impact on Households (Edward Elgar, 2011). He can be reached by e-mail at safray@cityu.edu.hk. *This article draws on a research project Housing assets and intergenerational dynamics in East Asian societies.
The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press in conjunction with the University of Tokyo. All rights reserved.

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assetsfacilitated by cheap nancing available from corporate and government sources. At the same time, younger households faced increasing problems of affordability (Hirayama and Ronald 2008). After 1990, however, the situation changed markedly with a long and traumatic period of recession and economic restructuring with job losses, reduced incomes and a crisis in the residential property sector which saw many households fall into negative equity (Forrest, Kennett and Izuhara 2003). Whilst this eased the affordability problems for households wishing to purchase, home ownership became inevitably a less attractive investment, as neoliberal policy prescriptions reduced employment security, particularly for the younger generation (Osawa 2001; Forrest and Hirayama 2009). Over the last half-century, therefore, different generations in Tokyo have experienced major transformations in living standards and lifestyles. At the same time, compared to western societies, traditional attitudes towards the family and intergenerational responsibilities have been slower to change. This relationship between the family and the economy is the focal point of this research, with residential property ownership as our specic concern given its centrality in household and family nances and aspirations (Forrest and Murie 1995). Our aim is to view individual and household circumstances intergenerationally rather than atomistically, and to explore how patterns of advantage and disadvantage are played out dynamically over families as a whole. This article focuses on two contrasting housing histories to show how a relatively common backcloth of social and economic transformation interacts with more specic household behaviours and attitudes with varying outcomes across generations. Before we discuss the specic family narratives and the conceptual implications, the article provides some additional context in relation to Tokyo, some comment on housing histories as methodology, and further detail about our overall research project.

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2. Tokyo Context
In the literature on contemporary urbanism, Tokyo is both a global city and a megacity (Taylor, Catalano and Walker 2002). It is a key node of the global economy, and in terms of population size Greater Tokyo represents the largest city in the world. Over a quarter of the Japanese population live in the Tokyo Metropolitan region, and between 1950 and 2000, its population grew by around 400,000 persons per year (Satterthwaite 2005). It is a prime example of metropolitan dominance (Rohlen 2002). The postwar development of Japan is therefore, to a signicant extent, about the development of Tokyo, given its economic and demographic weight. In that sense, an exploration of intergenerational change of Tokyo-embedded families is an appropriate lens through which to capture broader processes of social and economic change in Japanese urban society in the postwar period. With more specic reference to housing, Tokyo is a predominantly rented city and its housing stock has expanded continuously to meet the demands of urban migration and new household divisions. In prewar Tokyo, some 70% of all dwellings were rented and 42% of all rental units were single-family dwellings (Waswo 2002). Only a quarter of households were owner-occupiers in 1941 (Hayakawa and Ohmoto 1988). Immediately after the War, house sharing was common and some 40% of households were lodging or co-residing with other households in 1948 (Uchida 2002). Since 1950, institutional mechanisms have been in place to promote both the quantity and quality of housing [housing policy included long-term, low-interest loans by the Government Housing Loan Corporation (GHLC)]. At the same time, the family and the company represented important components of the postwar housing system, lling a gap in state housing policy and provision. However, as with most major cities, Tokyo does not necessarily represent the national housing scene. In many ways, Tokyo is peculiar in terms of its tenure patterns, available housing stock and

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dramatic price volatility. In response to postwar economic growth, Tokyo has constantly attracted a ow of domestic migration which resulted in a continuous expansion of the urban rental market. Since the early 1960s, while the rates of home ownership have uctuated around 60% for Japan as a whole, the rates in Greater Tokyo have been around 10% lower. And, as Table 1 shows, if the neighbouring commuter prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa are excluded, the home ownership rate for Tokyo Metropolis itself has been considerably lower. While some people made a positive choice to rent, for others, there was simply no viable alternative nancially due to the high price of properties (Waswo 2002). Another key factor is that Tokyo, like many capital cities, has a relatively high proportion of single-person households. According to the Census, in 2000, approximately 40% of households in Tokyo were single person, compared with the national average of 25%. A strong correlation between marriage and home ownership is still Japans dominant tenure characteristic (Hirayama and Izuhara 2008), and past policies (e.g. GHLC loan restrictions applied to single people) have reected and reinforced such practices. In the 1960s/1970s, central Tokyo was dominated by low-rise wooden-built apartments in a poor state of repair (Hirayama 2006). After the rst Oil Crisis in 1973, housing construction and home ownership were particularly encouraged in order to revitalise the economy. An example of this is the development of small, standardised built-for-sale single-family homes in the suburbs to satisfy the salaried mans dream. The supply of plots for housing in an already overcrowded city inevitably produced urban sprawl, and condominiums have become increasingly popular in urban areas. In 1970, the GHLC started offering loans to purchase condominiums, which helped shift the prole of home ownership away from the dominance of single-family homes, especially in Tokyo (Ronald and Hirayama 2006). By the end of the 1980s, land in central Tokyo was among the most expensive in the world and a disproportionate amount of investment had owed into the real estate sector. The bursting of the bubble economy in the early 1990s saw land and property prices in Tokyo plummet with values halved in some cases (Forrest, Kennett and Izuhara 2003). The steep decline in residential property values was followed by an equally steep decline in the major metropolitan areas, most notably in Tokyo and Osaka (see Figure 1). The effects of this rapid asset deation rippled through the entire economy generating numerous institutional and household casualties, with the younger generation being particularly badly hit in terms of employment opportunities and general life chances (Genda 2007). The condence and optimism of the previous generation was replaced by a more pessimistic and cautious view of the future. It was not until well into the 2000s that the economy began to show signs of a revival. Mega urban regeneration projects took off and new tower-type, multiple-use condominiums created hot spots in Tokyos skyline (Hirayama 2006). This is part of a strategy to revitalise the economy and reposition Tokyo as a global city, backed up by deregulatory, neoliberal policies. The landscape of Tokyo

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Table 1. Year

Percentage of Privately Owned Dwellings. 1953 58 60 1963 64 45 1973 59 39 1983 62 43 1993 60 40 2003 61 45

Japan (%) Tokyo Prefecture (%)

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Statistics Bureau: Historical Statistics of Japan.

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Figure 1. Land Price Changes in Tokyos Central Wards and Central Osaka City. Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism: White Paper on Land and Real Property, 2007. continues, however, to show a dichotomy between old and new (rather than new features replacing the older structures)increasing low-rise, urban sprawl co-existing with the mid- to high-rise metropolis (Waswo 2002). There is also increasingly evident social dichotomy, between rich and poor, in the visible misery of homeless people which persists in central Tokyo (Iwata 2007). This is partly an indication that the housing sub-systems (the family and the labour market), which used to meet young peoples housing needs, are breaking down (Iwata 2008).

3. Housing Histories, Housing and Family Dynamics


The exploration of housing histories has its roots in studies of residential mobility and residential preferences, in particular the way in which housing choices have been formed and exercised in more marketoriented systems. Most of this work has been undertaken in a western context. The seminal work by Rossi (1955), Why Families Move, was concerned with patterns of residential mobility in the US and what was perceived at the time as a nomadic threat to social cohesion and community building. Much of the research on residential movement, particularly in the US, came to be dominated by neoclassical approaches and the modelling of the key variables which would affect mobility and immobility at key points in the life course and in relation to variations in housing supply (see Strassman 2001). In contrast to this literature, which essentially modelled the mobility of utility-maximising individuals in a supposedly free market, a related parallel literature developed which was concerned with the distinctiveness of group experiences in housing systems; the choices and constraints which shaped housing movements at key points in the life course; and the processes of negotiation and adaption in relation to housing decisions. For example, there has been research on the housing experiences of ethnic minorities (Murdie 2002), on routes into and out of homelessness (May 2000), on the transition from parental homes to independent living (Jones 1995), and on the factors which shape the housing histories of particular social classes (Forrest and Murie 1987; Watt 2005). These approaches emphasised greater complexity in the decisions which shape housing trajectories (Murie 1997), the

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importance of cultural specicity and institutional context, and the use of housing history narratives as a means to explore the interactions between agency and structure (Gutting 1996). For the purposes of this article, the key point is that housing histories have evolved into a more general method through which to explore processes of social change in particular cultural and institutional contexts and at the level of the individual or household. Rather than being merely a means through which to explore and understand the operation of housing systems or the impact of specic housing policies, the construction of housing histories provides a framework for wider ranging narratives encompassing changing social norms, the interactions between residential, employment and educational factors, and a way of exploring broader family dynamics. The use of the word history is also intentionally neutral and used in preference to alternative conceptions such as housing career (Kendig 1984), strategy or pathway (Payne and Payne 1977). The idea of a housing career has tended to be associated with home ownership and the ascendance of rungs on a housing ladder. Similarly, housing histories may well be shaped by conscious strategiesfor example a strong investment orientationbut in other cases or at other times muddling through may be a more apt description. The use of the term history thus leaves open the question of whether there is an upward trajectory (measured in whatever terms) or whether there are evident strategies to cope with choices or constraints, offers more space to explore interactions between various social domains, and is more appropriate when, as in this study, the narratives stretch over more than one generation. To our knowledge, there are no studies which have constructed housing histories over three generations through face-toface interviews with connected family members, and few studiesif anyof housing histories in the Japanese context. There are studies of intergenerational relationships, but they have tended to focus on the older generation (Izuhara 2000). There have also been studies of the signicance of land and housing in family wealth in Japan (Hirayama and Hayakawa 1995), and of the signicance of the extended family in housing in contemporary Japanese society (see Morgan and Hirosima 1983). Such studies are, however, more narrowly focused and some are becoming rather dated. There are few, if any, studies in the Japanese or other contexts which use housing biographies over three generations as vehicles for a broader narrative of social change and family interaction. A key dimension of contemporary housing histories is that people are living longer and having fewer children in the global North. Japan is an extreme example of this demographic trend with a particularly low fertility rate and one of the most rapidly ageing societies in the world. These developments have created novel family structures with a shift from a horizontal to a more vertical one, which Bengtson and Harootyan (1994) call the beanpole family. There are fewer family members in each generation but there are more generations living at the same time (Bengtson, Rosenthal and Burton 1996). In Japan and across a wide number of societies, changes in employment patterns, shifts in the nature of housing provision, processes of privatisation and marketisation, and other socio-economic changes have combined to transform generational circumstances and relationships in a variety of ways (Izuhara 2009, 2010). In particular, both material and non-material resources are potentially cascading down the family tree to the smaller, younger cohort at the bottom. In a low-fertility society, children are in theory more likely to receive a larger share of such resources from their parents and grandparents. Real estate would appear to occupy a central position in these relationships. This is partly because, as Spilerman (2000) argues, asset holdings have increasingly become a more important determinant of social wealth inequalities among families than earned incomes. In the Japanese context, older and middle generations may have acquired considerable asset wealth during the postwar period of rapid economic growth and high price ination in the residential sector. Equally, younger cohorts have faced affordability problems evidenced by dramatic falls in their home ownership rates. During the post-bubble

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period, many families saw their residential assets seriously eroded. There have thus been sharp contrasts in the fortunes of different groups and different generations (Forrest and Lee 2004; Ronald and Hirayama 2006; Forrest 2008; Forrest and Izuhara 2009). It remains the case, however, that for the average family, real estate represents their most valuable asset and greatest investment. Moreover, how and when assets were acquired over generations is particularly important in the Tokyo context where, despite the bursting of the bubble, real estate remains notoriously expensive.

4. Research Methods and Family Prole


Empirical data were collected using a qualitative approach. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted using purposive sampling with adult members of three generationsone member each from grandparents, parents, and adult children (grandchildren)from 12 interconnected families in Tokyo. As a sampling strategy, the age band of the pivot generation was set at 5059 years old. The sampling frame for the pivot generation included both men and women, as long as they were homeowners. Only nine out of 35 respondents were male. We sampled informants with housing assets falling in different price ranges (from different neighbourhoods/new towns and different housing types such as single-family homes and condominiums) to differentiate their asset levels. Only families where three generations agreed to participate were interviewed. Family members were interviewed on their own without the presence of other members using a topic guide. Families were recruited through a variety of means including advertising locally, personal contacts, and contacting employers and resident committees. Interviews took 90 minutes on average. Interviews were recorded with the informants consent, transcribed fully in Japanese and then translated into English. Table 1 provides a summary prole of our three generations. The older generation were aged between 77 and 89, with the majority in their early to mid-80s at the time of interview. At the end of World War II, they were of marriageable age and many came to Tokyo from neighbouring prefectures and beyond in the process of urbanisation. They typically started off lodging or renting a unit in a wooden-built apartment. Some of our sample owned small businesses, such as a furniture maker, a wholesale business and a newspaper agency, tied to their housing. This cohort was often the rst generation of homeowners in Tokyo who were able to take advantage of rising real incomes and government land sales in the suburbs. Some acquired considerable wealth during the period of rapid economic growth and high price ination in the residential sector. The middle generation were in their 50s (born between 1948 and 1957), which included the baby boomers. This generation was the beneciary of improved postwar public policy and socio-economic systems, including established occupational welfare. The majority have climbed up the housing ladder, typically from renting a wooden private apartment, through small 2DK (two rooms with a dining kitchen) Housing Corporation housing, to owning a single-family home or a condominium unit. Condominium ownership gained popularity after the GHLC began offering loans to purchase such properties in the 1970s. This generation took advantage of company housing schemes as well as the low-interest loans provided by the GHLC. This cohort, however, included both winners and losers of the property bubble in the 1980s (Hirayama 2006). Due to the extreme property ination experienced in Tokyo, some families combined their resources between two adult generations to achieve shared housing arrangements. The ages of our younger group range from 21 to 34ve were in their late 20s and four in their early 30s. They were well educated and often had siblings. Although they have received generous nancial support from their parents, the younger generation came of age during the prolonged economic recession which has persisted since the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s. The changed economic context produced more diversied paths for this cohort compared with the more linear,

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upward social mobility of their parents generation. The increased dependence of adult children on their parents is also evident in declining marriage rates and high rates of adult, co-resident children. Some double-income couples have, however, managed to achieve home ownership in their late 20s/ early 30s due to falling prices and nancial deregulation. We can now turn to our intergenerational histories to begin to explore the issues outlined above. As stated earlier, most studies in this area have been limited to examining the linkages between two generations or have focused only on the housing experiences and circumstances of nuclear families. Faceto-face interviews with members of three interconnected generations, however, offer greater scope for understanding intergenerational dynamics and changing attitudes and behaviour in relation to the shaping of housing assets and housing opportunities in the contemporary world. In more afuent societies, the experience of individual home ownership is increasingly spread across at least three generations of living, adult members and our research thus provides a longer term perspective and context within which to situate the housing circumstances of individual households.

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5. Property-shaped Narratives
Land and real estate were more central to the shaping of the housing histories of the Kondo Family (Family 1 in Table 2) than to most of the other families we interviewed. There was a strong sense of continuity between old and middle generations in relation to their attitudes towards property investment, astute and cautious planning, and in their strong attachment to the family home and neighbourhood:
My husband was a real cautious man. When he wanted to get married (in 1948), he thought he needed a foundation. So he had already bought this (the plot of land) and asked me to marry him. He was that kind of man! (Older Kondo, Female aged 87).

The house he built was large enough to run their separate businesses (barber and wholesaler) and provide accommodation for the family. Over the years, it was extended and improved. The early timing of entry to land purchase was crucial in providing an advantage over other families; and a combination of subsequent low mobility, based on a stable occupation, and active investment attitudes led to a substantial accumulation of housing wealth. In this family, the original plot of land was cleared to make way for a three-storey building to provide rental income from residential and retail lettings, as well as an apartment for the older widow. Financial support from the parental generation also played a signicant role. Middle Kondos father made an early start in developing his property portfolioimmediately after World War II, before he got married. More recently, Middle Kondo decided to rent out (instead of selling) two separate units of the new residential building in which his mother (Older Kondo) lived, to provide a steady income in their old age. The fathers strong investment orientation had been passed onto his son. Middle Kondos father gave him a third of the funds needed to purchase his rst property in the late 1970s. Middle Kondo had inherited additional older rental properties and had also pursued a conscious strategy to acquire some of his own. He regarded land as an asset in which to invest and, rather exceptionally among our informants, linked real estate assets with social status. He outlined his search and investment strategy in the context of rising land values:
It is important to have perfect criteria (e.g. location and building conditions) to invest in apartments or investment properties. For example, it should be close to a station. If I want to build apartments or rental buildings, I need to work with these limited conditions. I tried to nd good investment properties but good

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ones started going up in price. Trading companies and developers started buying properties and were pushing the price up. That is why it was more expensive than I thought it would be. I was looking for something in West Tokyo, such as Hachioji and Kunitachiand somewhere near my daughters university. There are nice areas. I thought it was more effective to turn cash assets (savings) into real estate assets. But I gave up. In the mean time, there were a few old, rented properties which I inherited from my fatherI put my capital into those and had them rebuilt. I am renting those out nowcondominium units near the station.

This family had beneted substantially from rising land values in Tokyo in the period prior to the economic collapse in the early 1990s. Middle Kondo recognised that he had been in a relatively privileged position given the assets he had inherited and his relatively high salary. The younger generation of the Kondo Family were in a different situation given the greater affordability problems they faced compared to the previous generations. Young Kondo (F 22) had a more ambivalent attitude to property ownership:
My boyfriend lives in an ordinary studio at. Having lived with him, I realised that it was not a problem to live in a studio at! Its totally OK . . . I used to think this (the detached house) was the standard size and wanted to have a house at the same level. Whoever my future husband would be, I thought I could earn enough to have such a house. But looking at his room, I actually think now that this is OK as it is adequate for a normal life.

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On the other hand, the property asset advantages passed on from the older to middle generation were already taking shape for the younger generation. For example, there were nascent plans to create two dwellings from the ve-bedroom detached house currently occupied by Middle Kondo, and two other properties were also available. Middle Kondo observed: I have prepared enough houses, including this one, for when our three children get married and want to live here. He acknowledged that in contemporary Japanese society, some parents thought that their children should make it on their own, after their education had been provided for [following the Japanese saying do not leave beautiful rice elds (shison ni biden o nokosazu)]. His own attitudes had clearly been inuenced by the way he had been helped to get on the property ladder:
Some people are like thatthose who built their own assets. When I listen to their stories, they are often the ones who came from other regions; bought their own house with their own income from employment; and brought up their children without parental support. That is why they have this mentality that I did it myself so you should as well.

A family ethos of seeing land and property as an investment, however, was woven around this strong attachment to place and neighbourhood. In that sense, the property-shaped narrative was multi-dimensional, emotional as well as material. Middle Kondo had always wanted a detached private family house due to the way in which work and home had been so closely intertwined in his childhood. In his childhood home, there had been little to separate the (semi) public workspace, the dining area with constant guests and lodgers, and a more private sleeping quarter. Middle Okamoto (Family 5) was brought up in a similar workfamily combined household and had equally longed for a private salaried man household. Such workfamily dwellings also typically involved low mobility. For Young Kondo, however, this did not appear to have created a strong sense of local attachment. She recalled some frustration in her youth that the family had always lived in one place and that she had longed to move. Some family generations pooled their resources and maximised their potential to achieve higher housing standards and quality of lifefor the younger, growing family to obtain more space and for the older members to feel a sense of security to be with their adult children. The co-residency found in four of our families (#2, 7, 8 and 9) took different forms and had different motives, but were

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Table 2.

Prole of Tokyo Families. Middle Generation M (58); married (3); commercial pilot; multiple HO large SFH; low mobility Younger Generation F (23); single; university student; living with parents

Older Generation 1 F (87); widow (2); retired from own barber business; multiple HO three-storey building F (85); married (husband bedridden) (3); both retired; living with son (ownership transferred to son); low mobility F (80); widowed (2); worked for nancial sector; husband civil servant; condominium owner living next to sons unit; low mobility M (79); married (2); retired from small retail shop; HO; move to condo from SFH after retirement F (77); widow (3); retired from family business; own house with shop front (risk of eviction due to redevelopment); low mobility F (84); widow (2); retired news agents; HO co-owned ve-storey building; living with unmarried son; low mobility M (81); married (2); retired from trading company; HO two-household housing; high job-related mobility

M (57); divorced (2); early retirement from department store; HO suburban SFH; no move since marriage

M (27); single; postgraduate student; private rental (one room) in central Tokyo

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F (57); married (2); housewife/husband accountant; HO condominium; low mobility

F (25); single; ofce clerk; living with parents

F (51); married (2); housewife/husband civil servant; HO condominium unit; frequent mover F (55); married (2); housewife/husband retired from family business; HO SFH; no move since marriage

F (25); single; support staff in foreign investment bank; private rental in central Tokyo F (27); single; contractbased despatch worker: living with parents

F (55); married (2); yoga instructor/husband salaried worker; HO own unit in the family-owned building; no move since HO F (53); married (4); parttime/husband construction company, HO two-HH housing; low mobility (local only)

F (27); single; student; living with parents

F (21); single; university student; living with parents

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Table 2.

Continued Middle Generation F (56); married (2); housewife/husband insurance; HO condominium unit; frequent mover F (56); married (3); HO secondhand SFH; failed coresidency with son; low mobility F (56); married (2); housewife/husband personnel in electronic company); HO new condo; frequent mover F (56); married (3); household/husband retired pharmaceutical company; HO condo in a new town; low mobility F (54); married (2); NPO worker; HO new condo in a new town; low mobility Younger Generation M (31); married without children; HO condominium unit in Saitama

Older Generation 8 F (81); widow (3); twohousehold housing (failed co-residency) living alone in a Tokyo central ward; no move since HO M (89); married (5); retired retailer; HO SFH in Chiba city

M (34); married (1); dual income (construction); bought own SFH

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10

N/A

F (32); divorced without children; administrative staff; HO secondhand condominium

11

F (81); widow (3); housewife; HO SFH living with married son (no kids) in Chiba

F (31); married (1); nurse; double income; HO secondhand condo in the same new town

12

M (86); widower (2); retired academic; HO small SFH

F (21); single; university student; living with parents

Note: Gender (age); marital status (number of children); occupation/partners occupation; tenure and housing type; HO, home ownership; SFH, single-family home; HH, household; N/A, not applicable; NPO, non-prot organisation.

all practical and necessary ways to overcome the housing affordability challenges of Tokyo, and were also a very emotional practice of traditional family interdependency (Brown 2003). The particular forms of, and negotiations around, co-residency capture the tension between continuity and change regarding housing and family in contemporary Japan. Geographic stability can be as important a factor for co-residency as childrens willingness to live with older parents. Compared to her brother who experienced a series of job-related transfers, including overseas, Middle Fukuzawa (Family #7, F 53) received more housing support from her parents over her married life. She beneted on three occasions: while house-sitting rent free when her parents were posted overseas (she used what she saved to purchase land); through borrowing from her fathers retirement allowances to purchase land; and eventually by being able to build two-household housing on the land owned by her parents. On the other hand, Older Fukuzawas (M 81) attitudes towards his son, who did not full the traditional sons duty, were rather negative. I did not give him any

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money. It was ne that he bought his condominium himself. He had no intention of building twohousehold housing but rather bought something himself. Even with such a traditional living arrangement, the family adopted more contemporary ways of sharing their accommodations. They had a plot of land large enough to build a two-storey, twohousehold house to accommodate the older couple on the ground oor and the daughters family on the rst oor. Middle Fukuzawa commented that my father wanted to do all shared living, but I said it was impossible! In terms of family relations, untraditionally, it was the daughter who coresided with her parents. In terms of physical arrangements, the house had two separate entrances which led to two separate dwellings with complete facilities similar to a duplex with full privacythe only difference was the internal connecting door. The spacious plot of land had enabled them to achieve this high level of privacy compared to some failed co-residency cases such as Middle Ishii (F 56 Family #8), where the building was only designed for partial privacy. For example, although the Ishiis had separate kitchens, toilets and sinks on both oors, a bathroom and an entrance were shared in order to maximise the already-small living space:
When my husband came home, I still had to go down and open the door for him. We had to negotiate who would take a bath rst. We could not take a bath whenever we wanted. It was OK if there were only me and my children (when husband was posted away), but I was very conscious when my husband was around.

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When Middle Ishii accepted the offer to live with her parents, she had regarded it as a convenient and temporary arrangement while her husband was posted around with his job. It provided a convenient opportunity for her children to have a base in Tokyo for their schooling. She nanced it exclusively and thus decided the design and layout of the new home. Her husbands early return from his posting, however, upset the arrangement. It proved very difcult for two generations to share the intimate space, especially when it involved in-laws. The arrangement eventually affected her husbands mental health. In comparison, the Fukuzawas modernised version of multi-generational living seemed to work. Although affordability difculties (and the availability of special intergenerational loans) bring multi-generational families together in Tokyo, some face space constraints and there are tensions between traditional and new lifestyles. Moreover, for the owners of two-generation, two-household housing, future property values and use can be rather uncertain. For empty nesters, owning/ inheriting two-household housing can prove rather inexible and impractical for other uses. If it is a condominium, however (some families, such as Family #3, opted to live next to each other in separate units in the same condominium complex), it is easy to sell or rent out the parents unit when they pass away. Due to the structural semi-intimacy created for co-residency, two-household housing is difcult to convert to an income stream by selling or renting out. The Fukuzawa residence also had too many small rooms. Moreover, given the expected lifespan of Japanese houses, they are likely to require substantial repair or need to be rebuilt in later life. The Fukuzawas had already taken out a second mortgage in their early 40s, and nancing this third transaction could prove very difcult. These considerations had changed Middle Fukuzawas attitudes towards the convention of home ownership, single-family homes and the accumulation of housing assets:
Renting offers more freedom. It is easier to move when lifestyles change. It is such a waste once all our children move out. I am not planning to open a lodging house! (They have four small rooms for four children). I hear that some older people sell their single-family home and move to a condominium, which is not a bad idea. I know a friend whose father, and mother-in-law, and the couple themselves live in three separate units in the same condominium building.

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There was also recognition of the changing attitudes towards family support across the generations. As Middle Fukuzawa observed I do not think my children want our house as they do not want to look after us parents . . . I am also tired of bringing up four children, so I do not want to look after grandchildren. Compared to the reciprocity and dependence experienced between the older and middle generations in this family, the prospect was of a very different relationship between the next pair of generations, given the more individualistic attitudes towards family support and housing.
As soon as I get my rst job, I want to live on my own. I want to be independent from my parents. It may be good to have a single family home when I have children, but while I am single or its just two of us, it is better to live in a condominiumin order to t changing life-styles, renting will be the best. I do not link housing with social status as my parents generation might have done (Young Fukuzawa F 21).
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6. Employment-shaped Narrative
For some families such as the Hayashi Family (Family #10) and the Yamashita Family (Family #4), the housing histories of the middle generation reected Japans postwar corporate housing system. And such employment-shaped housing histories often involved frequent moves between regions and high residential mobility. As has been previously stressed, the family and the corporation formed the key housing sub-systems in the postwar welfare regime (Takegawa 1999; Izuhara 2000). During periods of economic growth, the larger corporations constructed apartments and dormitories to accommodate their employees with heavily subsidised rents. Others leased accommodation from either the private sector or relocated employees. Some also offered saving schemes, low-interest loans or rent subsidies. Because of her husbands job, Middle Hayashi (56) moved between Tokyo and Osaka three times, moved houses nine times and bought four different houses in the process. They made full use of the company housing schemes for renting, letting, purchasing and selling. As Hayashis case highlights, such corporate initiatives were a reection of the need for greater geographic mobility among employees in the high growth period as much as the high cost and shortage of housing in many of the metropolitan core areas. They also had the effect and the purpose of tying workers to a particular company (Kamata 1984). But company housing lled the gap between public and private housing provision and was used by many workers as a stepping stone to home ownership (Fujita and Shionoya 1997; Sato 2007). Such housing occupational welfare is now, however, in decline. Corporate families like Middle Hayashi fully beneted from, but were also exploited by, the company system. Middle Hayashi experienced a number of moves and lived in a variety of housing types, locations and tenures in two regions which shaped their housing choices, attitudes and destinations. Interestingly, such frequent moves tend to produce very mixed and polarised attitudes and aspirations towards housing among corporate families. Our research found that frequent moves sometimes produced a strong attachment to owning a life-long home, while others became much more pragmatic and exible about housing choices according to their life course needs. Middle Yamashita (Family #4, F 51), for example, after two decades of moves, had now settled in her own condominium unit and offered the following reection:
I dont think home ownership gives us social status, but despite how much wed wanted it, we could not have owned housing because of my husbands postings. If we had not moved so much, we could have had enough savings to buy a single-family home . . . I am not planning to move again. I made friends and

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got used to the neighbourhood. I am not going to follow my husband again to his postsI am not going to lose my home.

Her daughter (25) echoed the importance of preserving her parents assets in the form of housing in the future, although her job or lifestyle may not allow her to live in the particular unit: To me, that is the house my parents so longed to own. They have a strong attachment to it. Considering mothers feelings, I cannot sell it. Young Ishiis (Family #8 aged 32) parents were also frequent movers, and his attitudes towards work, family and housing were shaped by his childhood experiences: Perhaps I deliberately chose a job which did not involve transfers. I moved around a lot due to my fathers occupation. So I wanted to have my own house, or at least wanted to stay put. He purchased a condominium when he got married at the age of 26, and both his and his wifes parents helped with their deposit, providing a third of the total cost. Middle Hayashi (F 56) [and Middle Ishii (Family #8)], however, displayed a much more pragmatic attitude and seemed to have little attachment to housing:
It is ne to live in a house which suits your current lifestyle. Compared to some people, I am surprisingly not at all bothered about it. I went out one morning and came back that night with a (single-family) house I had purchased. My son could not believe it. He asked, Is it OK to be so casual?

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In this family, housing seemed to be regarded in a more commodied way (Forrest and Williams 1984; Yamada 1999; Ronald and Hirayama 2006), as assets to be bought and sold as circumstances changed with apparently limited emotional attachment. Their employment circumstances did, however, mean that they had little control over their residential choices and they were also constrained by lack of funds. Their attitudes had been shaped by frequent moves, and were also a result of an intergenerational transmission of such values. They also ran counter to the common belief that the family home (housing is a familys asset) retains an important material and symbolic place in contemporary Japanese society. Both of Older Hayashis housing purchases have been for practical rather than investment purposes. Despite owning a family home, Older Hayashi purchased another single-family home to ease her commute and later bought another condominium to use as storage space while the family residence was being demolished. Although Middle Hayashi eventually fullled the salarymans dream by building a new single-family home on the outskirts of Tokyo, the couple ultimately moved back to central Tokyo for a more practical condominium option which offered easier commuting and convenience in old age. In their last transaction, they lost U15,000,000 (100,000) (1 5 U150). Again for Middle Hayashi, it was more important to live in a house which suited their needs at each point in their life course rather than be driven by social status or asset-building considerations. The housing, work and family trajectories of the three generations were very different in the Hayashi family. The elderly mother was, unlike most women of her generation, a career woman who had accumulated her own housing assets through paid employment. The middle generation followed the employment-led, male breadwinner path which was a distinctive but rather conventional familyhousing model in the 1970s and 1980s. There was no strong sense of housing asset accumulation on her part. Instead, she made rational choices in relation to her changing life course needs. Being the only child may have given her a sense of security:
We lost a lot nancially (on housing) but we never regretted it . . . Since I was asked to manage my parents nances from early on, I knew how much they owned. That is partly why I did not worry too much about

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losing on houses. We were able to be adventurous. Even if we lose now, there is always something to make up the loss.

The trajectory for Younger Hayashi, however, appeared to be rather different since she now lives in the deregulated, high-risk post-bubble society amidst changing social norms and expectations. She had married but was already divorced. She was a frequent job mover, but she had already purchased a secondhand condominium unit on her own. Compared with Middle Hayashi, she had received no company assistance for housing but substantial nancial help from her parents towards the deposit (U5,000,000: 33,333). While her family and employment trajectories may be more diverse and fragmented, she appeared to place some weight on housing to provide stability and security:
(Housing provides) a sense of security. [Does that outweigh the fact that you own a large mortgage/debt?] Probably. I am on my own but do not know what will happen in the future. My parents will pass away before me. Although I have a brother, I will be alone. Where do I see a sense of security?owning housing provides a great source of security.
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7. Discussion and Conclusion


These housing narratives provide a relatively intimate window on changes in Japanese society highlighting commonalities of experience as well as signicant differences. The narratives enable us to see how employment, housing and family factors interconnect in complex ways to produce different patterns of asset accumulation in the context of a rising but increasingly volatile property market. The narratives indicate the ways in which attitudes and behaviours are intergenerationally shaped, both positively and negatively, in relation to housing choices as well as provoking more general conceptual and methodological observations. It should be noted, however, that interviews with subjects concerning events and choices made some time in the past often and perhaps inevitably involve a tidiness and apparent clarity of purpose. Pasts are more typically strewn with accidental and unforeseen circumstances and a neutral term such as intergenerational histories may underplay the way in which choices are structured or constrained by the different kinds of priorities clearly evident in our narratives. A study spanning three generations generates a substantial amount of material of intrinsic interest. This relates, for example, to how employment patterns have shifted from the early postwar period, in which an older generation was involved in small family businesses and there was an intimate relationship between place of work and place of residence, through the jobs for life and salaryman regime of the economic growth period, to the post-bubble period of greater risk and exibility in the labour market. The contemporary period is also an era where there is a need for much higher investment in educational capital in a more individualised, competitive world. Although much of the detail cannot be reported here, these intergenerational family histories provide a lens through which to view Tokyos emergence from a devastating war into a period of growing afuence to the more recent period in which the economic prescriptions and institutional models which had previously been seen as central to economic growth have been called into question. Against this shared backcloth, however, the narratives illustrate the particularities of life paths and the ways in which the opportunities taken and choices made by one generation help shape the trajectories of subsequent (or previous) generations. Thus, in relation to the core interest of this research, housing as an asset has varying prominence. The housing experiences of each generation are also distinctive and vary across generations. Unless coming from a farming family, for example, the older generation was the rst

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Table 3.

Housing Choices and Attitudes. Middle Generation Father encouraged me to build SFH on his land based on the assumption that I would later marry and have children. Contrary to what I said (children should be independent) I own three properties now large enough for each of my children to live in after their marriage if necessary. Parents were getting older and expected to buy a house and live together. That was the plan. But there were lots of trouble living together and eventually my wife left us. (As the oldest son) I had a duty to look after my parents and thought that the earlier the better (to start coresidency). I do not want to buy a house in Japan again! After 20 years, it gets shabby and out of fashion. My husband still has an attachment to land so wants to buy SFH. But I do not want a huge mortgage for such inconvenient and unhealthy housing! It is better to stay put and spend money on other activities Younger Generation My boyfriend lives in a studio at, and I realised that it was possible or rather comfortable to live in one room! Our house is spacious for ve of us living. I used to think that SFH was the standard housing type but not anymore.

Older Generation 1 Own house rebuilt to threestorey building in their late 70s containing six rental units to generate rent income: I just left everything to my husband and son to decide.

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Ive never lived in a rented house and cannot imagine paying monthly rent. We wanted to have our own house no matter how small or like a barrack it was. We bought this house to live together but our grandsons have now left and we do not need so much space.

Housing choice depends on a job. My job may require high mobility and owning a house would restrict such mobility. Scary. Housing will be the most expensive commodity to buy in life. I would hesitate if that increases risks in the volatile economy.

It was naturally expected for me to move in with my husbands family when I got married. I have no desire to movenever wanted to go anywhere else. Ive never moved since I rst came here. Only moved from the rst oor unit to upstairs.

Denitely condominium and renting! I do not want to be tied to one place by buying a house. My future is uncertain . . . Also SFH appears to be hard to maintain so risk factors of owning SFH are too great for my lifestyle.

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Table 3.

Continued Middle Generation We could not own a house no matter how much we wanted it. If we had not moved so much, We could have saved enough for SFH. (A condominium) is just right for us. It was the rst time we owned our own house. We can use it as we wish. It is not big or luxurious but we like the condo and its location. I longed for a nuclear family and SFH without a business!! My mother did not let me marry someone without a house so my husbands family built this house before we got married . . . but we could have started in an apartment. All I wanted was a (nuclear) family life not a house. Co-residency is getting popular here. Land is expensive along the Chuo line so many of my classmates came back to rebuild their house and live with parents. In the bubble period, it was impossible to build our own house so we agreed with my parents to make the most of the land to build a vestorey buildingto live in separate units in the same building. Younger Generation I was desperate to be independent despite the expenses. What I could not compromise (for my at) were location, a usable kitchen and good security. My parents nally managed to own their condo. Thinking about their attachment, I would not be able to let it go.

Older Generation 4 SFHs are only available in the suburbs and you need a car to live there, while everything is at a walking distance for this condo. My wife used to talk about her regret at not buying a SFH with a garden but she has gradually changed her mindin our age, location is important.

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I came to this house at marriage. It had a furniture workshop downstairs. I lived with my in-laws . . . wherever you looked, there was always someone there. No time to be alone. I did not want my sons to go through the same hardship (of co-residency) so we built a house for 1st son.

I have not thought about housing. But I want to be independent by 30 . . . I want to leave this (parental) home since I have never lived anywhere else. She has no clear plans.

My parents bought this place for us to carry on the newspaper delivery business. It was a shabby, old onestorey house. I married into a family with properties and land was given to us. We saved so that we did not need to use a loan.

(Having lived in downtown) I want to live in the countryside . . .. I do not like the condo. It is too close to neighbours to hear all sorts of noises. I cannot even open the window. Owning a house gives you identity and emotional security. It is good for children to have somewhere which never goes away. In Tokyo, a particular address rather than housing type gives you social status!

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Table 3.

Continued Middle Generation Housing need driven by growing family. Four children each wanted a room. My brother asked me to ask father if it was OK for him to buy a condominium (intention not to live with parents). Then father said shall we live with you then . . . we wanted a bigger house and they wanted co-residency so it worked out for both of us. Childrens schooling was the main reason why we decided to come home (after several postings) . . . we should have thought more carefully what it was like to live together. I do not have any attachment to housing. We browsed the internet and checked the price and locationnear a station, shops and library. We did not look around a lot to decide. Owning a house is not raising social status but fullling my own wish. My house mirrors my own life. We bought this secondhand SFH ve years ago and I love it. I was so disappointed when our son changed his mind. We had a plan to rebuild it to twohousehold housing . . . now it is OK. This is not too bad. Younger Generation I would live in my parental home until I get a job. And then I want to live in a rented condo near my work. Renting is better while younggives more exibility according to changes in the life course.

Older Generation 7 Bought SFH in suburb in 1968 to acquire more space, freedom and a garden; later rebuilt it to live with daughters family natural expectation to live with childdid not matter son or daughter in the end

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We used our network to buy the land in 1964 and built a small house with a tin roof. We tried to spend as little as possible. (When we re-built the house) I did not think that we needed two of everything (to live together). We are the same family, arent we? But we were too optimistic. I thought that my daughter would be here to help me.

I was conscious to choose a job without any transfers. We moved a lot so I wanted to have my own homewanted to stay put. Rented housing would not become yours. So in total it would be more costeffective to own from the start. Some of my married friends also own condos. We decided to buy somewhere in between my and wifes parents. It was cheaper to buy a house than renting in this suburb and I would not have any job-related mobility in the future. I had a strong interest in housing due to my profession in the industry. That could be another reason for me to build this house so early.

My husband is an only child and worked hard to build the house and shop. We were lucky to get the exprefecture land which our relative originally won in the draw. He built the house anyway without an intention to live in itit was left vacant for a long time.

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Table 3.

Continued Middle Generation We started off with a modest house but each one was a step to the next house whether it was good or bad. I have no attachment to a house. Our SFH purchase was also very casualwent out one morning and came home with the purchase at night. Younger Generation I divorced in the process of condo purchase. I was determined to complete the purchase even on my own . . . the idea of not having anywhere to live was more scary than the large loan. I am young enough to pay off and own this place eventually. It depends where you seek your security. I wanted to come back to New Town to have a baby. New Town was built for young familiesspacious and lots of trees . . . We looked around. We looked at 3 new condos and 30 old ones. We were not planning to buy it so soon; wanted to save more for a deposit but we came across the one we really liked! My younger sister owns a condo too. My parents recommended it. I have never given a thought to housing. I have never moved, for example. I just take it for granted. Probably a condo or apartment if I were to live on my own. SFH is too big and I would not feel safethere are lots of areas to get broken into.

Older Generation 10 N/A

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We bought a second-hand SFH near the coast. My sons asthma was the reason why we wanted to move out of the centre. We rebuilt the house in situ later on.

We won a draw for a newlybuilt rented apartment in new town. Growing family and a plan to live with mother-in-law. The New Town was expanding with more and larger complexes, some of which were built to sell. That was the time when everybody wanted a condo. A large deposit was required so we started to save towards it.

12

I received a large sum of money when I left my rst workplace so used the money to buy a built-for-sale SFH . . . I was happy to own my own home. Now Im looking to move to purposebuilt housing for older people. It would be easier for meals and securityand have people to talk to!

After our rst baby was born, we bought this condo in New Town. One of my colleagues was living in this area. But chances of winning a draw were slim. It was one in ve chances. We spent many weekends looking around different places. It is secure and warm compared to SFH.

SFH, single-family home.

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generation of homeowners in postwar Tokyo and often built their housing assets entirely on their own through small businesses or through participation in the expanding postwar labour market. This was the period when land in Tokyo was sold in plots for house building by the government, and the start of a trickle down of assets over generations when the middle generation gained access to home ownership. The Kondos conform most closely to this model of housing asset accumulation, gaining entry to the housing market at the right time, taking advantage of Japans rising prosperity and appreciating land values, and adopting a conscious nancial strategy to generate rental income and a wealth portfolio of land and dwellings. In contrast, the Hayashis housing histories were shaped by the imperatives of job mobility. On the one hand, there was a less traditional attachment to notions of the family home. On the other hand, use value generally trumped exchange value in their housing history. For them, lifestyle and life course needs were more prominent concerns than accumulating property-related wealth. Much of their housing experiences were structured around the company, in contrast to the Kondos in which the private money market was the more dominant source of nance. We have also referred to the Fukuzawas narrative as another property-led history, in the sense that pooling resources, co-residency, and the compromises required to achieve this were important inuencesas were the ways in which family relations were affected by the different attitudes of the middle generation Fukuzawas towards this housing history. Moreover, Older Fukuzawa made housing choices at various points to facilitate the housing needs of his offspring. We have also provided some additional indication of some of the common and differentiating factors at play in shaping housing choices within and between generations. Given the connes of this paper, it is not possible to provide lengthy verbatim material but Table 3 conveys some of the key factors at work within the families. Risk, affordability, the family home, renting or owning, and issues of co-residency are all evident in relation to the housing choices made by the families. In our typications of the intergenerational narratives, we have intentionally highlighted the differences and apparently dominant features. But the summary quotes illustrate that there are also important areas where inuences overlap and interconnect. In all our histories, housing, work and family factors interact with a distinctive Japanese dimension. Consistent with commentaries such as Clammer (1995, 1997), in the sphere of housing, there is certainly not a simple process of individualisation occurring but a more subtle interplay between tradition and social change, and between the family as an institution and its individual members. There is an evident tension in all the narratives (as indicated in Table 3) between tradition and change, as the discontinuities generated by rapid economic development and shifting employment patterns place stress on past practices in terms of family relations, duties and responsibilities. But it is evident that the family (not the nuclear household but the extended family) continues to play a key role in many aspects of housingnancing housing purchase and providing accommodation. This self-help role of the family is also being re-emphasised today, in an era in which the roles of the state and companies have shrunk signicantly. Although the housing trajectories of the younger generation are difcult to discern at this early stage, their experiences are  likely to be more polarised than the conventional path of jutaku sugoroku (climbing up the housing ladder) that was available for their parents generation. On the one hand, housing has become more affordable for younger people. In the more deregulated market, there are more opportunities for double-income younger couples to gain earlier access to home ownership, particularly condominium units. On the other hand, for those outside secure employment, the family may be a critical safety net for accommodation and other assistance. Also, in a low-fertility society, children will have more opportunities to benet from parental assets. One of the primary purposes of this research was to provide a less atomised and individualised perspective with particular reference to housing. From some viewpoints, we have a rather stark picture

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of an increasingly privatised and commodied world in which individual households confront an anonymous market with varying levels of resources. These varying resources, both material and non-material, are, however, better seen in terms of portfolios accumulated and structured over generations. Among other things, this exposes the path-dependent nature of advantage and disadvantage and the need to take greater account of factors beyond earned income and occupational position of single individuals and households in the shaping of opportunities and constraints.

Funding
UK Economic and Social Research Council in 20072008 (RES-062-23-0187).

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