Social Time and Social Space of Wives in Chiba New Town with Reference to Labor Market

本研究旨在探讨东京东郊千叶新城失业妇女与在职妇女生活型态之差异。本研究以千叶新城仁载市108户家庭为研究对象，在一个假期（2001年11月18日）和一个工作日（2001年11月19日）进行社会时间和社会空间的问卷调查。被调查住户的属性如下：高中毕业的已婚夫妇组成核心家庭。他们的男性主管大多是白领；其中三分之一的人通勤到东京市中心，另外三分之一的人通勤到千叶县西部，还有一些人通勤到东京市中心以外的地方。90%的就业妇女从事的是灰领工作，她们几乎都在千叶新城附近工作。这说明千叶新城的工作机会比多摩新城少得多。与失业的妻子相比，每天有三分之一的时间花在工作和通勤上的在职妻子，花在家务和/或照顾孩子上的时间较少；失业的妻子在家务上多花了约2小时，在睡眠上多花了约30分钟，这与多摩新城的调查结果几乎相同（Sugiura and Miyazawa, 2001）。特别是全职主妇的购物场所仅限于千叶新城中央站附近的超市；他们单调的生活部分是由于缺乏购物机会造成的。90%以上的全职家庭主妇以前都有过工作。其中70%的人在搬进千叶新城后就退休了。她们的举动与成为全职家庭主妇密切相关。

The purpose of this study is to consider the difference between the life-style of unemployed wives and that of employed wives residing in Chiba New Town, east suburbs of Tokyo. A question naive survey of social time and social space in one holiday (Nov.18, 2001) and one weekday (Nov.19, 2001) was conducted among 108 households in Inzai City, Chiba New Town. The attributes of surveyed households are as follows. Married couples with highly school career form nuclear families. The majority of their male heads are white-collar workers ; one third of them commute to Central Tokyo and another one third commute to the western part of Chiba Prefecture while some of them commute further beyond Central Tokyo. Ninety percent the employed wives are engaged in gray-collar works, and almost of them work just around Chiba New Town. This shows working opportunities in Chiba New Town are much less than those in tama New Town. Compared with the unemployed wives, the employed wives who spend one third of daily hours on working and commuting spare less time for domestic duties and/or childrearing ; the unemployed wives spend about two hours too much on housekeeping and about thirty minutes too much on sleeping, which is almost same as the survey of Tama New Town (Sugiura and Miyazawa, 2001). Especially the shopping place of the full-time housewives is limited to supermavlcets near Chiba New Town Chuo Station ; their monotonaus lives are partially caused by these scarcity of shopping opportunities. Ninety percent and over of the full-time housewives had formerly worked. Seventy percent of them retired just as they moved into Chiba New Town. Their moves are closely related with to make them into the full time housewife.