On September 20, 2024, “The Shapes of Coparenting in Finland, Portugal, and Japan: Cross-national Comparisons of the Couples Who Had Their First Child” was held at the Tokyo International Exchange Center. This international symposium was supported by the Nakajima Foundation, was co-organized by the Coparenting Consortium (Tokyo Metropolitan University and Toyo University), and was sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and Tokyo Academic Park.

 

In 2020 and 2021, research teams from Finland, Portugal, and Japan interviewed couples expecting their first child and investigated how they plan to cooperate as parents in raising their children. Then, from 2022 to 2023, the research teams interviewed them again when their children were approximately 1.5 years old to find out how they cooperated in parenting. This symposium was organized to disseminate the results of this longitudinal research to society at large and to learn how parents in countries with different social systems and cultures approach parenting through international comparisons.

 

The symposium was held in a hybrid format of on-site and online, with approximately 20 participants at the venue and 100 participants online. Moderated by Prof. Daisuke Ito of Tokyo Metropolitan University, the symposium opened with opening remarks by the President of Tokyo Metropolitan University, Prof. Takaya Ohashi, followed by two keynote speeches by Prof. Angela Abela (University of Malta) and Prof. Anna Rönkä (University of Jyväskylä). In the afternoon, case studies from Finland, Portugal, and Japan were presented by the Principal Researcher Kaisa Malinen (JAMK University of Applied Sciences), Prof. Marisa Matias (University of Porto), and Chino Yabunaga (Toyo University).

 

Prof. Yasuka Nakamura (Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences), Junko Nishimura (Ochanomizu University), and Mariko Tatsumi (Osaka Metropolitan University) as discussants commented on the presentations and asked questions. The presenters and the discussants had lively exchanges of their opinions on the word usage of “coparenting,” gender inequality, and other related topics.

 

Speakers and Discussants
(From left to right: Chino Yabunaga, Anna Rönkä, Angela Abela, Kaisa Malinen, Marisa Matias, Daisyo Ito, Mariko Tatsumi, Junko Nishimura, Yasuka Nakamura)

 

Discussion