Nakamura, Yuko2012-03-092012-03-092007http://hdl.handle.net/2440/69733Although motherhood is believed to be an essential role for Japanese women, a growing minority of women are choosing to be childfree. This thesis explores why Japanese women choose not to have children, given the strong pronatalist discourse on motherhood. Childfree women’s voices are rarely heard in society and the subject is also absent from Japanese feminism. A qualitative-interpretive study of existing narratives was undertaken to record the reasons, experiences and meaning of being childfree in Japanese society from women’s perspectives. Women in narratives identified the difficulty of combining work and family as the main reason they were childfree. Other major reasons women choose not to have children are: they reject gender inequality, once a woman has a child, gender/sex role assignment comes into her relationship with her husband/partner, husband/father becomes a breadwinner and the wife/mother is responsible for domestic work including childrearing; women choosing to be childfree value their individual fulfilment about the social role of wife/mother, they would like to be human beings or they stressed their identity in terms of their careers.childlessness social aspects Japan; women Japan; work and family Japan; sex role JapanThesis20120307142524