Abstract

This study explores how the idea of an ‘appropriate’ age for a woman to reproduce has been propagated through maternal and child health policies in Japan since the early post-war era. The notion of an ‘appropriate’ age emerged during the 1960s when a qualitative shift occurred in family planning, as local government classes for newlyweds began to emphasize the health risks associated with ‘elderly primipara’: childbirth in later life. Since the 1990s, the Japanese government has attempted to tackle the country’s declining fertility rate through pronatalism, outlining the reproductive difficulties that aging can engender and, from the 2010s, instructing young people to draw up their own ‘life plan’. However, as government recognition of child abuse has increased, a competing argument has emerged that pregnancy in young women should not be viewed as ‘appropriate’. This concept of an ‘appropriate’ age for reproduction is fluid, malleable and dependent on both social context and interpretation. I argue that governmental attempts to define an ‘appropriate’ age for pregnancy should be challenged: reproduction and child nurturing are unpredictable phenomena, in which social and biological factors shape individual experiences.

摘要

本研究探讨了自战后初期以来，女性生育“适当”年龄的想法是如何通过母婴健康政策在日本传播的。“适当”年龄的概念出现在 1960 年代，当时计划生育发生了质的转变，因为地方政府新婚夫妇课程开始强调与“初产妇”相关的健康风险：晚年分娩。自 1990 年代以来，日本政府一直试图通过生育率来解决该国生育率下降的问题，概述了老龄化可能带来的生育困难，并从 2010 年代开始指导年轻人制定自己的“人生计划”。然而，随着政府对虐待儿童的认识增加，一个相互矛盾的论点已经出现，认为年轻女性怀孕不应该被视为“适当的”。这种“适当”生育年龄的概念是流动的、可塑的，并取决于社会背景和解释。我认为应该挑战政府定义“适当”怀孕年龄的尝试：生育和养育孩子是不可预测的现象，其中社会和生物因素塑造了个人经历。