Over the past two decades, Japan's socioeconomic environment has undergone considerable changes Within this context, "freeters" - young part-time workers aged between fifteen and thirty-four who are not housewives or students - have emerged into the public arena as a social problem. This book, drawing on six years of ethnographic research, takes the lives of male freeters as a lens to examine contemporary notions of masculinity and adulthood. It queries how notions of adulthood and masculinity are interwoven and how these ideals are changing in the face of large-scale employment shifts, whilst also considering whether male freeters can become "proper" adult men in contemporary Japan.

Emma E. Cook is an Associate Professor on the Modern Japanese Studies Program at Hokkaido University, Japan.

Introduction 1. Immature Masculinities? Freeter Labour and Adulthood 2. Being and Becoming: Aspirational Labour and Masculinities 3. Familial (Dis)Connections: Masculinities and Labour at Home 4. Marital Desires and Restrictive Masculinities 5. Female Labour and Commodified Selfhood 6. Conclusions: Reconstructing Adult Masculinities