1) What exactly is meant by the term "marriage squeeze?"
2) What might be some important causes of marriage squeezes (either in Japan or elsewhere)? For example, what is the cause of the well documented marriage squeeze against American women born in the late 1940s and early 1950s?
3) Given their interest in explaining why marriage has changed so much in Japan, why do the authors focus particularly on irregularities in the pattern of change in marriage age? That is, what is the reason for their particular interest in the leveling off of marriage age between 1960 and 1975 between periods of steady increase in age at marriage?
4) What are the many possible explanations for the dramatic changes in Japanese marriage considered by the authors?
5) Among these explanations, which do they suggest are the most important? The least important? On what basis do they make these conclusions about the relative importance of different explanations?
6) The authors note that university educated men are less likely than university educated women to never marry. What accounts for this gender difference among highly educated Japanese? (Note that the same pattern exists in almost all societies)
7) How do the authors go about determining how much urbanization and rising educational attainment have contributed to changes over time in women's marriage?
8) Education has both direct and indirect effects on marriage timing. What are they?
9) What is meant by the term "reverse causality?" What evidence do the authors bring to bear on the possibility of reverse causality between labor force participation and marriage for women?
10) What is meant by the term "opportunity cost of marriage?"
11) According to the authors, what is the link between the decline in arranged marriages and the increases in age at marriage and proportions never marrying?
12) The analyses of sexual experience and attitudes toward cohabitation showed that very few individual characteristics were related to the likelihood of single women having sexual experience or approving of cohabitation (see Tables 4 and 5). How do the authors interpret these findings?
13) How do the authors suggest that attitudes toward gender relations, and changes therein, might be related to changes in marriage timing?