Westernized Home Life Style in Japan

The traditional way of living in Japan was sitting on “Tatami”—Japanese floor mat—not using chairs and sleeping on “Futon”—the Japanese bed mat spread directly on “Tatami.” The traditional living style was the predominant mode in the average Japanese household until the end of the Second World War. Before the end of the war, only a few upper‐class families used western‐ style beds and chairs, but after the war, the use of beds and chairs spread rapidly throughout the general public. The objective of this study was to obtain information concerning the actual living conditions among Japanese people by determining the combination of Japanese and western life styles. Information was collected by questionnaires in 1975 from 446 mothers whose children were junior high school students living in Fukuyama city. The data were compared with information previously obtained by the author in 1966. The findings showed that more than half of the subjects used chairs in the dining room, guest room, and children's room. The tendency towards the use of chairs seems to be approaching its upper limit. The rate of adoption of the western style bed however has not yet reached 50 percent, but is expected to increase in the future.