Between the family and the household : theoretical reflections for reconstructing the contemporary concept of the household

セタイ ガイネン ノ サイヘン : ヒカゾク セタイ ト カケイ ノ キョウドウ オ メグッテ

クボタ, ヒロユキ

Kubota, Hiroyuki

オオサカ ダイガク ダイガクイン ニンゲン カガク ケンキュウカ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

家計

非家族

household

household account

non-family

Contrary to the concept of the family as institutional and idealistic groups, the concept of the household has been widely utilized as an objective and substantial unit from a socio-economical standpoint. However, this concept of the household was actually conceptualized cross-referentially, rather than independent of, the concept of the family, so there are difficulties in understanding the contemporary diverse situations surrounding families. This paper, by scrutinizing some important studies in family sociology and household economics, addresses how and why the concept of the household has confined the possible diversity of collective lifestyles into the family household. First, looking back at the works by Teizo TODA, Kiyomi MORIOKA and Hiroaki Shimizu, aids in the understanding of what was chosen and eliminated in conceptualizing the household. A bipolarization of the concept of the household into individual households and family households can be seen, by eliminating other collective lifestyles in the process of conceptualizing the household in relation with families. Second, household economics has long tried to focus on household accounts in order to theorize the household as substantial economic unit composed of self-interested individuals. This methodological individualism, however, seems to have compromised with familialism, in that even household economics implicitly assumes a closely shared household account like families as a general model of shared household account, which results in excluding other less closely shared household accounts. In conclusion, this paper reconstructs the concept of the household in concordance with the contemporary diverse situations surrounding families, by suggesting that the idea of “shared household account” should be expanded and thus the concept of the household should be merged into “cohabitation”. This simplified concept of the household will be successful in including various collective lifestyles first and then discussing the other features among diverse households within and without families.