The purpose of the present paper is to describe findings from a survey on attitudes toward marriage and family among Japanese never-married youth from the point view of the general framework of the demand and supply system. The norm of marriageable age has weakened, and people increasingly prefer to delay marriage and to look for ideal spouses.
Economic difficulties are among the leading obstacles.
But reasons related to the demand factor, i.e. reasons for low motivation to get married, remain substantially as a second or third reason even in age groups over 30 years of age. The results described above as a whole indicate that never-married people in Japan are in a kind of paradoxical situation in which they complain about such difficulties to marry as insufficient availability of prospective spouses, while they have weaker motivation to get married. In other words, they find the supply condition of marriage defective and have the weak demand for getting married at the same time. This situation can possibly be explained by increasing level of expectation for marriage and spouse due to dynamic change in conceived function of marriage. According to answers to a question about costs and benefits of marriage, the purpose of marriage seems to become more individualistic, while practical needs for marriage are diminishing.