Children in Japan

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        Have you ever wondered what life is like for children in Japan? This site summarizes the research of four sociology students for the first year writing seminar Children & Society at Tulane University. You will learn from this site (or you may already know) that children have it pretty good in Japan. There aren't any big problems with poverty, hunger, or child abuse. In this site we focus on the experiences of Japanese children in the educational system, along with expectations outside of school. We hope you learn something new from exploring our website, so read on and enjoy.

        We recognize that our knowledge of Japanese children is limited by several factors. First, we cannot read the Japanese language, and therefore we used only English publications. Second, we have very little prior knowledge of Japanese culture, and third, our research lasted for a period of only two months. We hope that our web site encourages you to do more research on children in Japan, and thus, we've provided links to other sites and complete citations for our references on each page.

Background Information

        Japan consists of thousands of Islands, the main islands being Kyushu, Honshu, Okinawa, Shikoku, and Hokkaido. 125 million people live in Japan, and 99% of those people are Japanese, while about 1% is Korean. The cooperation between industries and the government is strong, and there is a high level of work ethic. Since the end of World War II, Japan has worked its way up to being the second greatest economic power in the world. The Japanese have the highest incomes of all Asian workers, and since 1961 Japan's health care system has covered all its citizens.

        Today, Japan's population is becoming increasingly older. Families are having fewer children. Parents choose to focus on one child in hopes of raising him or her to be successful. Furthermore, the Japanese school system is one of the most successful in the world. Japanese children are required to attend nine years of school, although 95% of the junior high students continue schooling for several years after that. A common trend is for students to attend prep school (juku) along with regular high school because education in Japan is highly competitive, and a student's performance plays a major role in their future jobs and social status.


Click on map to enlarge

The following statistics are from the UNICEF website
Total Population126,505,000
Population under 54.9%
Population under 1818.5%
Infant Mortality Rate4 in 1000

Sources used for this site:

Archer, Ayako and Archer, Steven. "A Beginner's Guide to Japan." Retrieved November 15, 2001
(http://www.shinnova.com/part/99-japa/japa00-e.htm).

"Japan" Retrieved November 15, 2001
(http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ja.html).

More Resources (pdf annotated bibliography)


Hannah, Ellen, Rachel, Joanna 		The purpose of this site is to inform web users on the status and lifestyles of children in Japan. This site was designed by Joanna Boyle, Rachel Riezman, Hannah Wolod, and Ellen Vollmers as part of a collaborative web project for the first year writing seminar Children & Society at Tulane University taught by Professor April Brayfield.

We like to send out a special thanks to our consultants from around the world:
Ms. Yoko Araki (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USA), Professor Cyndi Dunn (University of Northern Iowa, USA), Professor James-Henry Holland (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, USA), Professor Satoshi Ikeda (University of Alberta, Canada), Ms. Yuko Kurashina (University of Maryland, College Park, USA), Mr. Koji Mitsuhashi (Tokyo, Japan), Professor Johnnie Spraggins (Our Lady of the Lake University, Texas, USA), Professor Yuichi Tamura (State University of New York-Geneseo, USA), Professor Hiromi Taniguchi (University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA)

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Last Updated: 11/28/01