Problems single mothers face in Japan

Gender roles can be difficult for anyone to deal with. Japanese women are pressured to focus on marriage, raising children and housework before their own lives and careers. While this can limit their options and potential, the flip side is that those who don’t live up to these standards can have an even more difficult time.

Single mothers in Japan face enormous challenges. Many of the same issues that women in general face here are compounded by the challenges of being a single parent. Women are often limited to poorly paid job opportunities and single mothers can struggle to support their families.

There are some child-care allowance programs available to help single mothers. However, depending on the city or region, they have to deal with invasive and inappropriate questions about their personal lives. In order to receive benefits, some women in the Tokai region had to answer questions about possible pregnancies and how much time they were spending with men.

On top of this, single mothers face difficulties getting child support. After divorce, it’s expected that only one partner be listed as a child’s custodian and that usually ends up being the woman. Only 20% of divorced mothers get child support and it can be expensive and time-consuming to sue their ex-husbands for it, with the awarded amounts often being quite low. These benefits have also been the targets of cuts in the past.

The end result of all this is a high poverty rate for single mother headed families. 54% of single parent households in Japan have incomes below the poverty line, with most of those headed by single mothers. This can lead to poorer educational outcomes for the children of such households. Single parents can’t afford cram schools and other things that would help give their children an edge in exams.

Long term financial prospects for Japanese women, in general, are behind those of men. The lack of solid job opportunities also means they have difficulty saving for retirement. The current setup means that single motherhood unnecessarily leads to devastating and lasting effects for both single mothers and their children.

Cultural attitudes can have effects on policy and systemic issues in a society. We can see this play out to some degree in the case of single mothers in Japan. If traditional families where the woman stays at home are considered the ideal, then any family who doesn’t fit that mold could face judgment from their community.

Because of this, some single mothers may even hide their circumstances or try to make it seem like they’re better off than they actually are. With this kind of stigma, it’s not surprising that Tokai women dealt with inappropriate questions about their personal lives when applying for benefits.

Nobody should ever be stigmatized for their life circumstances, especially those such as divorce which are not always in a person’s control.

Not only does this situation lead to unnecessary shame and challenges for single mothers themselves, it also makes it harder for their children to succeed. When we punish people for not fitting into a very particular box, both they and society as a whole lose out.