Bringing together a number of perspectives on the Japanese housing system, Housing and Social Transition in Japan provides a comprehensive, challenging and theoretically developed account of the dynamic role of the housing system during a period of unprecedented social and economic change in one of the most enigmatic social, political, and economic systems of the modern world.While Japan demonstrates many of the characteristics of some western housing and social systems, including mass homeownership and consumption-based lifestyles, extensive economic growth and rapid urban modernization has been achieved in balance with traditional social values and the maintenance of the family system. Helpfully divided into three sections, Housing and Social Transition in Japan:explores the dynamics of the development of the housing system in post-war Japandeals with social issues related to housing in terms of social aging, family relations, gender and inequalityaddresses the Japanese housing system and social change in relation to comparative and theoretical frameworks. As well as providing challenges and insights for the academic community at large, this book also provides a good introduction to the study of Japan and its housing, economic, social and welfare system generally.

1. Introduction: does the housing system matter? - Yosuke Hirayama and Richard Ronald 2. Reshaping the housing system: home ownership as a catalyst for social transformation - Yosuke Hirayama 3. Transformations in housing construction and finance - Eiji Oizumi 4. Welfare regime theories and the Japanese housing system - Iwao Sato 5. Turning stock into cash flow: strategies using housing assets in an ageing society - Misa Izuhara 6. Housing, family and gender - Mieko Hinokidani 7. Social exclusion and homelessness - Masami Iwata 8. The Japanese home in transition: housing, consumption and modernisation - Richard Ronald 9. Situating the Japanese housing system - Richard Ronald and Yosuke Hirayama

Yosuke Hirayama is Professor of Housing and Urban Studies at Kobe University in Japan. He is the author of several books on housing and urban transformations in Japanese, and has also published widely in international housing and urban research journals. He is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Housing Research Network.

Richard Ronald is a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and was formerly a Research Fellow at Kobe University in Japan. He is the former recipient of the Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship.