The book offers a compassionate view of the cultural and financial pressures that these women face.... The book offers a chance to revisit the question of how, given the rapidly declining population and slowing birthrate, single motherhood might be an economically and socially sustainable alternative to the continually normalized male-breadwinner family.

Japanese Studies

Aya Ezawa offers us not only a wonderfully detailed account of the experiences of single mothers in Japan but also a sophisticated examination of how gender and class intersect with Japan’s welfare, employment, and education systems in the case of women who appear to demonstrate a perhaps surprisingly conventional attitude towards marriage and family.

Roger Goodman, University of Oxford

In Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan, Aya Ezawa skillfully depicts the 'gendered meanings of social class' through her analyses of single mothers' life trajectories, experiences, and perspectives as mothers and working women.

The Journal of Japanese Studies

In Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan, Aya Ezawa skillfully depicts the 'gendered meanings of social class' through her analyses of single mothers' life trajectories, experiences, and perspectives as mothers and working women. . . . this book is a valuable addition to the growing literature on Japanese women, mothers, and families. Ezawa succeeds in depicting ideals of motherhood and mothering through the eyes of single mothers and “gendered tracks” across social classes in Japan. I hope this critical study will be read by many and lead to more studies on diverse forms of parenthood as well as gender and social class inequalities in Japan.

The Journal of Japanese Studies

Based on over fifty in-depth interviews, this important work expertly analyzes the lives of single mothers in contemporary Japan in terms of gender, class, and generation. Battling to stay in full-time employment while providing a loving household for their children, these feisty women confront conservative social norms while gaining some support from an intermittently liberal welfare regime. Sympathetic but balanced, Ezawa provides the most nuanced account to date of Japanese single mothers.

Tom Gill, Meiji Gakuin University

In this beautifully written book, Ezawa captures the lives, feelings, and identities of single mothers who raised children during the recent recession in Japan. By combining life history interviews and an engagement with sociological questions about class and gender, Ezawa powerfully demonstrates how marital status and maternal practices define single mothers’ class identity, which stands in clear contrast to the ideal of stay-at-home middle-class motherhood. This book provides a rare window on single mothers’ struggles for balancing work and family and strategies for their children’s future in contemporary Japan.

Hiroshi Ishida, University of Tokyo