Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: differentiation and uncertainty / Satsuki Kawano, Glenda S. Roberts, and Susan Orpett Long -- Work and life in challenging times: a Kansai family across the generations / Glenda S. Roberts -- Masculinity and aging in a straitened Japan: the view from twenty years later / Gordon Mathews -- Working women of the bubble generation / Sawa Kurotani -- "Making an ant's forehead of difference": organic agriculture as a lifestyle alternative in Japan / Nancy Rosenberger -- Shelf lives and the labors of loss: food, livelihoods, and Japan's convenience stores / Gavin Hamilton Whitelaw -- Single women in marriage and employment markets / Lynne Nakano -- The aging of the Japanese family: meanings of grandchildren in old age / Susan Orpett Long -- Barrier-free brothels: sex volunteers, prostitutes, and people with disabilities / Karen Nakamura -- Recreating connections: nonprofit organizations' attempts to foster networking among mothers of preschoolers / Satsuki Kawano -- The divination arts in girl culture / Laura Miller -- Education after the "lost decade(s)": stability or stagnation? / Peter Cave -- Lightweight cars and women drivers: the de/construction of gender metaphors in recessionary Japan / Joshua Hotaka Roth -- The story of a seventy-three-year-old woman living alone: her thoughts on death rites -- Satsuki Kawano.