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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 11, No. 7
Publication Date: July 25, 2024
DOI:10.14738/assrj.117.17159.
Katsurada, E., & Ueda, M. (2024). A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and Two Parent Families in Japan.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(7). 07-16.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and
Two Parent Families in Japan
Emiko Katsurada
Kwansei Gakuin University, School of Humanities, Department of Psychology
Mizuho Ueda
Kwansei Gakuin University, School of Humanities, Department of Psychology
ABSTRACT
The present study examined the differences between young children from single- mother families and those from two-parent families based on their prosocial
behaviors and behavior problems. Mothers’ affectionate parenting was also
compared. We collected data using a Japanese online survey company. A total of
335 women who had a 3 to 5-year-old child participated; 51.2% of which were
single mothers. The mothers rated their child’s behavior problems and prosocial
behavior and answered a questionnaire on affectionate parenting. The results
indicated a significant interaction effect of family structure and child’s gender on
children’s behavior problems. The scores of girls were significantly higher than
those of the boys in single-mother families, whereas no such gender difference was
found in two-parent families. Concerning the scores of children’s prosocial
behaviors and the mothers’ affectionate physical contact, however, there was no
difference between single-mother and two-parent households. Limitations of using
internet surveys were discussed.
Keywords: Single mothers, Preschoolers, Behavior problems, Prosocial behaviors,
Affectionate parenting
An increasing number of single-parent households is one of the characteristics of contemporary
Japanese society. According to the 2020 national population census published by the Statistic
Bureau of Japan (2021), the number of single-parent households in Japan is 5,002,541or about
9% of the total number of households in the country. Although the rate seems low, it is rising -
an increase of 5.4% over the survey conducted five years earlier. A majority of the single-parent
households are mother-child households and more than three quarters of them became a single
mother household due to divorce (Nishi, 2017). Reflecting this trend, studies on single mothers
are growing, in which the main discussion is the poverty of single mothers. Abe (2008) states
that the poverty rate of single mother households is extremely high among various types of
households in Japan. She also states that Japanese single mothers’ living situations are peculiar
since despite of their extremely high employment rate, they are still poor and the child support
from her child’s father and the government is scarce.
Besides the high employment rate and poverty level, having to work long hours is another
characteristic of Japanese single mothers. Tamiya & Shikata (2007) showed that the working
hours of Japanese single mothers are the longest among 12 countries including the USA, UK,
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and other European countries. According to the data on people’s social lives published by the
Minister of Health, Labour, and Welfare in 2011, the average time spent on child care was 46
minutes per week day for Japanese single mothers who have children under 6-years-old,
whereas it was 113 minutes for working mothers of two-parent household under the same
conditions (Yamano, 2014). This shortened amount of time spent with children may affect
children’s mental health in single mother families. Single mothers’ poor mental health may also
influence their children’s mental health since studies on single mothers outside Japan indicated
that they had more mental health problems than partnered mothers (Moilanen, et al., 1988;
Liang, et al., 2019).
Contrary to the relatively large volume of research on single mothers’ working and financial
situations, studies on single mothers’ and their children’s mental health and/or well-being are
scarce in Japan. To our knowledge only one empirical study utilizing a direct comparison
between children from two-parent families and single mother families exists. Nakamichi
(2017) examined preschoolers’ social behaviors and found no differences between children
from single mother households and those from two-parent families in aggressive, hyperactive,
anxious-fearful behaviors and being excluded by peers. Children from single-mother families,
however, showed less prosocial and more asocial behaviors compared with children from two- parent families. As Nakamichi (2017) stated in his study, there are no other known empirical
studies regarding the influence of single motherhood on children’s social behaviors in Japan.
In the Western countries, however, this type of empirical study has been accumulating since
1950s. Studies show that single mothers and fathers reported more externalizing behavior
problems of their children than married parents, and single mothers reported more
internalizing behavior problems as well (Hilton & Devall, 1998; Hilton et al., 2001). A Canadian
study indicated that the single-mother family status was significantly associated with children’s
morbidities, although the explained variance was limited (Lipman et al., 2002). In Israel,
Shechner et al. (2013) examined children’s adjustment in four different family types including
combinations of lesbian or heterosexual and a single or married mother. The results indicated
that single mothers reported more externalizing behavior problems and higher levels
loneliness in their children than did married mothers. With respect to prosocial-antisocial
behaviors, however, no difference was found between the children of single and married
mothers.
Literature reviewed so far does not discuss gender differences of children, but some
researchers noted the importance of children’s gender living with a single parent. There is the
same-sex argument, that is, after divorce children who live with the same-sex parent are better
off than their counterparts who live with an opposite-sex parent (Powell & Downey, 1997).
Using three data sets, Powell & Downey (1997) examined this argument and concluded no
evidence of supporting the advantage of same-sex parent in adolescents or adults. On the other
hand, Mokrue et al. (2012) investigated this same-sex argument with a majority sample of
African American families, and found that girls in 2nd and 3rd grades who come from single- mother families had higher scores of externalizing behavior and hyperactivity than the
counterparts from two-parent families, whereas no such difference was found for boys.
Consistent with this finding, a longitudinal study of adolescents indicated that single
motherhood contributed to adolescents’ depressive symptoms only for girls in homes with
negative parenting styles (Daryanani et al., 2016). These two studies showed the disadvantage
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Katsurada, E., & Ueda, M. (2024). A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and Two Parent Families in Japan. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(7). 07-16.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.117.17159
of living with a same-sex parent for girls from single-mother families. Therefore, the same-sex
argument seems inconclusive.
Thus, contrary to the results of the Japanese study (Nakamichi, 2017), a majority of Western
studies report a negative influence of single motherhood on children’s well-being and social
behaviors including externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. This discrepancy may
be attributed to the difference in child’s age. The subjects of the Japanese study were
preschoolers whereas the children in Western studies were above six years old. It also could be
that a different perspective of children’s behaviors, for example, that mothers’ and parents’
reports of a child’s behavior were employed in the most of Western studies whereas teachers’
rating was used in the Japanese study. Regarding the same-sex argument, it is still controversial
within Western countries. The Japanese study did not show any advantage or disadvantage of
a child residing with the same-sex parent. Since the number of single mothers is increasing in
Japan but there is only one Japanese study on children with single mother, we need more
Japanese studies on the influence of single-motherhood on children.
The purpose of the present study is to examine whether Japanese children in single-mother
families are different from those in two-parent families with regard to their social behaviors.
The previous Japanese study (Nakamichi, 2017) employed preschool teachers’ rating to assess
children’s social behaviors, but like most Western studies, the present research used mothers’
rating of child behaviors. Although many Japanese researchers affirm single-mothers’ lack of
time to care for their children, there is no research on the difference in the quality of child-care
between single mothers and married mothers. One particular aspect of child-care qualities we
examined was the differences between single-mothers and married-mothers in the level of
affectionate physical contact in their daily child-care. We also examined the same-sex argument
in our Japanese sample.
METHOD
Participants and Procedure
In order to acquire approximately the same amount of data from single mothers and married
mothers, we chose to collect data using a Japanese online survey company (“fastask”). This
online survey company has more than 3,000,000 registrants.
A total of 336 women who had a 3 to 5-year-old child participated in this online survey. One
hundred sixty-four women were single mothers (48.8%) and one hundred seventy-two were
married mothers who lived with their spouse (51.2%).
Measures
Child Behavior Problems:
To assess individual child’s level of behavior problems, we used the Japanese version of the
Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ: Behar & Stringfield, 1974). The PBQ consisted of 30
items on three subscales and the Japanese version confirmed the original 3-subscale structure,
hostile-aggressive, anxious-fearful, and hyperactive-distractible subscales. The details of the
development of the Japanese version were reported in Katsurada (2012). The mother rated
each item on a scale of 1 (never fit), 2 (sometimes fit), and 3 (very fit). In the present study, the
Chronbach’s alphas were .96 for hostile-aggressive, .93 for anxious-fearful, and .85 for
hyperactive-distractible subscales.
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Child Social Behaviors:
A child’s social development was assessed by the questionnaire developed by Kuze, Yokoi, &
Kondo (1990). It consists of 28 items covering the aspects of independence, altruism,
cooperation, responsibility, and perseverance. Item examples are “Being able to play with
friends peacefully,” “Being able to clean up toys,” and so on. The rating scale is the same as the
PBQ. Higher scores represent a higher level of a child’s social ability. The Chronbach’s alpha of
these 28 items in this sample was .94.
Affectionate Child-Rearing:
The level of a mother’s physical contact with her child in daily care was assessed by the
questionnaire developed by the first author (for the developing process, please see Katsurada,
2012). It consists of 12 items which includes “To take a bath together,” “To soothe your child
while holding the child in your arms when he/she is crying,” etc. The mother answered each
item on a 4-point scale from 1 (never)to 4 (always do). The Chronbach’s alpha of these 12 items
in this sample was .92.
Demographic Variables:
The following questions were included in the survey: mother’s age, working situations (full- time, part-time, not working), working hours per week (for only part-time workers), children’s
gender, and subjective economic situation on a scale from 1 (very affluent) to 5 (very poor),
which were consolidated into three categories: 1 (affluent), 2 (average), 3 (poor) in the analysis.
Analysis Plan
First, we conducted background analyses to examine whether there were any differences
between single mothers and partnered mothers in terms of background, such as age,
employment status, economic situations and etc. Then, we used MANCOVA to examine the
interaction effect of single motherhood and children’s gender on children’s behavior problems
with mothers’ age and economic status as covariates. To examine the same interaction effect
on children’s social behaviors and mothers’ affectionate behaviors to their children, ANOVAs
were used.
RESULTS
Background analyses
The single mother’s average age was 32.75 years (SD = 4.93) and the average for married
mothers was 35.53 years (SD = 4.36). Single mothers were slightly younger than married ones
(t = 5.41, df = 334, p < .001). Table 1 shows the single mother’s and married mother’s
employment status. As indicated in the previous studies most of the single mothers in our
sample (approximately 91%) were employed part or full-time.
Table 1: Number and percentage of participants’ employment status
Full-time employment Part-time employment No employment
Single mother 114 (69.5%) 35 (21.3%) 15 (9%)
Married mother 49 (28.6%) 48 (28%) 74 (43.2%)
To investigate the poverty of single mothers that many Japanese researchers referenced, we
conducted a chi-square test for the association between subjective economic situations and
family structure. The frequency distribution is presented in Table 2. The result of a chi-square
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Katsurada, E., & Ueda, M. (2024). A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and Two Parent Families in Japan. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(7). 07-16.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.117.17159
test showed that more single mothers self-reported as poor and more married mothers self- reported as having average income (χ
2 = 19.94, df = 2, p = .000). Although married mothers’
subjective economic status and employment situation were not related, a significant relation
was found for single mothers; more full-time workers reported as affluent compared with part- time workers and those without employment (χ
2 = 14.50, df = 4, p < .01).
Table 2: Number and percentage of participants’ subjective economic situation
Subjective economic situation
Affluent Average Poor
Single mother 36 (22.0%) 63 (38.4%) 65 (39.6%)
Married mother 26 (15.2%) 107 (62.6%) 38 (22.2%)
Distribution of children’s gender in each family structure was as follows: 96 girls (58.5%) and
68 boys (41.5%) in single-mother families and 77 girls (45%) and 94 boys (55%) in two-parent
families. There were more girls in single-mother households and more boys in two-parent
households (χ
2 = 6.12, df =1, p < .05).
Effects of Family Structure and Children’s Gender on Behavior Problems
To examine the effect of single motherhood on children’s behavior problems, a MANCOVA was
conducted with three subscales (hostile-aggressive, anxious-fearful, and hyperactive- distractible) as dependent variables and family structure (single or married) and children’s
gender as independent variables. Subjective economic status (original five categories) and
mothers’ age were included as control variables. Comparisons of mean scores of three subscales
by family structure and child’s gender are shown in Figures 1, 2 and 3. The results of MANCOVA
indicated a significant interaction effect of family structure and children’s gender as well as
main effects of each factor (see Table 3). It is shown that the gender difference was significant
only for single-mother families. On all three subscales, girls’ scores were significantly higher
than those of boys’ in single-mother families but not for two-parent families, F (1, 329) = 12.74,
p = .000 for hostile-aggressive; F (1, 329) = 12.62, p = .000 for anxious-fearful; and F (1, 329) =
8.21, p = .004 for hyperactive-distractible scores1.
Fig.1: Means of hostile-aggressive score by family structure and child’s gender
0
5
10
15
20
25
Girls Boys Girls Boys
Single Mother Married Mother
Hostile-aggressive
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Fig. 2: Means of Anxious-fearful score by family structure and child’s gender
Fig. 3: Means of Hyperactive-distractible score by family structure and child’s gender
Table 3: MANOVA results
Source Dependent variable Mean square F p Partial η
2
Economy aggressive .11 .11 .003 .000
anxious .04 .04 .001 .000
hyperactive .88 .88 .156 .000
Mother’s age aggressive .45 .45 .012 .000
anxious .13 .13 .005 .000
hyperactive .40 .40 .071 .000
Family structure aggressive 988.59 23.34 .000 .072
anxious 639.36 25.15 .000 .071
hyperactive 142.14 25.23 .000 .071
Child’s gender aggressive 671.87 17.22 .000 .050
anxious 563.80 22.18 .000 .063
hyperactive 34.79 6.18 .013 .018
Family structure aggressive 497.00 12.74 .000 .037
x Child’ gender anxious 320.80 12.62 .000 .037
hyperactive 46.26 8.21 .004 .024
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Girls Boys Girls Boys
Single Mother Married Mother
Anxious-fearful
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Girls Boys Girls Boys
Single Mother Married Mother
Hyperactive-distractible
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Katsurada, E., & Ueda, M. (2024). A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and Two Parent Families in Japan. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(7). 07-16.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.117.17159
Effects of Family Structure and Children’s Gender on Social Behaviors and Mothers’
Physical Contact
To investigate the effect of family structure and children’s gender on social behaviors, ANOVA
was conducted with the total score of social behavior as a dependent variable and family
structure and children’s gender as independent variables. Subjective economic status and
mothers’ age were included as control variables. The results show neither main effect nor
interaction effect.
Changing the dependent variable to mothers’ physical contact scores with the same
independent variables and control variables, another ANOVA was conducted. A marginally
significant main effect of children’s gender was found, F (1, 329) = 3.12, p = .078, ηp
2 = .009.
Both single mothers and married mothers tend to have more physical contact with boys than
with girls (see Figure 4). In Figure 4, the level of single mothers’ physical contact with their
daughters looks extremely low, however, the interaction effect was not significant.
Figure 4: Means of mothers’ physical contact score by family structure and child’s Gender
DISCUSSION
Although many studies in Western countries reported a disadvantage of being in a single- mother household on children’s adjustment, a comparable Japanese study (Nakamichi, 2017)
did not show the same results. Since there is no other Japanese study on this issue, we
conducted an online survey to increase the knowledge base of children’s well-being in single- mother families.
The result of the present study indicated the effect of single-motherhood on children only for
girls’ behavior problems. Preschool-aged girls from single-mother families had significantly
higher scores on behavior problems (hostile-aggressive, anxious-fearful, and hyperactive- distractible) than did boys from single-mother families and children from two-parent families.
This result is consistent with Mokrue, et al. (2012), but not with Nakamichi, (2017), the
previous Japanese study.
As stated earlier, inconsistent results may be due to the different raters of children’s behaviors;
teachers’ rating in Nakamichi (2017) compared to mothers’ rating in the present study. The
disparity between mothers’ and teachers’ ratings on children’s behavior problems has been
36
36.5
37
37.5
38
38.5
39
39.5
40
40.5
Girls Boys Girls Boys
Single Mother Married Mother
Physical contact
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reported in previous studies (e.g., Achenback, McConaughy, & Howell, 1987; Gagnon, Vitaro,
Tremblay, 1992; Katsurada, 2005). Since teachers and mothers see different aspects of
children, the discrepancy in the results may denote that judging from the observation of
teachers, preschoolers’ problem behaviors are not much different between children from
single-mother families and married-mother families, whereas from the observation of mothers
there are some differences, especially for girls. Mothers’ rating of behavior problems would
reflect the relationship between mother and child, and the result of the present study could be
interpreted as a poor relationship between single-mothers and their daughters. Based on this
result we need to pay careful attention to families inclusive of a single mother and one or more
daughters, and may need to provide more support to them.
Another interesting result of the present study is that mothers tend to physically touch boys
more than girls during daily care regardless of the family structure (single-mother or two- parent household). This could provide a partial explanation for the present result of girl’s
higher level of externalizing problems than boys in single-mother household, since the
association between maternal touch and a child’s aggression was found in previous studies
(Filed, et al., 1994; Main & Stadman, 1981; Katsurada, 2012). However, researchers must be
cautious about this explanation because previous studies did not reveal gender difference in
mothers’ physical touch in daily care and play-related storytelling task (Katsurada, 2012; Aznar
& Tenenbaum, 2016). Therefore, this explanation is possible only for this sample.
The major limitation of the present study is the lack of information on individual children,
which made it impossible to control for child age. Although the mother’s age which seems to
correlate with the child’s age was included as covariate, the child’s age would work as stronger
covariate. Another limitation is that children’s social behaviors were assessed only by mothers.
As argued earlier, it is possible that children’s social behavior ratings are different depending
on the rater. Multiple assessments of children’s behaviors by various raters should be included
in one study. Further, there are limitations to utilizing an internet survey. First, our sample is
biased toward internet-literate mothers since only those who have access to a computer and
registered with the survey company could participate in this study. Second, as two challenges
with internet surveys are that different internet-survey companies may produce different
results, and that some respondents of an internet survey are more likely to use minimum effort
to answer the questions (Miura & Kobayashi, 2015). Our research could not eliminate these
problems. We need to conduct similar studies using different internet survey companies and
include Instructional Manipulation Check (IMC) items.
Despite these limitations, this internet survey made it possible for us to collect as much data on
single mothers as those of married mothers. Also, the participants in this internet survey reside
all over Japan, thus the results represent a more general population than those of a community
sample. To our knowledge, this was only the second study in Japan that investigated young
children’s social behaviors comparing children from single-mother household and those from
two-parent households. These two studies show different results and therefore we need
additional studies for conclusive results on this issue.
Declarations
There was no external funding for this study, therefore, there was no potential conflict of
interest. APA ethical standards were followed in the conduct of the study. Informed consent
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Katsurada, E., & Ueda, M. (2024). A Comparison of Children’s Social Behaviors in Single Mother and Two Parent Families in Japan. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(7). 07-16.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.117.17159
was obtained based on the survey company’s ethical codes prior to individual monitor
registration.
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Footnotes
1 Since the tendency to gender difference was found on mothers’ physical contact (p < .10), another MANOVA
was conducted which added physical contact scores to the existing control variables. However, significant
interaction and main effects of family structure and children’s gender did not change.