End of the Housewife Paradigm? The Comparative Development of Work-Family Models in Germany and Japan

The male breadwinner/female housewife family model became the dominant family paradigm in many industrialized countries during the postwar period. A wealth of literature has analyzed this model that is characterized by a male head of household in a nuclear family who receives sufficient income to support a wife and children, with the wife engaging in domestic and care work without pay. The man’s full-time employment is protected by social insurance programs and supported by the woman’s full-time homemaking and mothering.