Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
71
almost 40%.
18
Income levels had considerably risen by this time but this sum can still be
considered surprisingly high in the 1970s.
19
In 1980, major department stores in Osaka and
Tokyo reached a peak in their sales of Shichigosan-related items.
20
In the department store of
Daimaru in Tokyo, the profits from the Shichigosan sale arrived at 100 million Yen in total,
which was two thirds more than the sale figures of the previous year. From the early 1980s,
all major department stores were installing special corners for the exhibition of Shichigosan
outfits. The income pouring into photo studios during the month of Shichigosan (November)
often helped balance poor sales figures from the rest of the year.
21
The emergence of
convenient packages combining services of shrines and photo studios offered increased
affordability to many families happy to celebrate in an appropriate way but without the
necessity of exaggerated spending.
The effects of changing views on child and family structure
In the postwar period, the market’s development around Shichigosan was evolving in close
connection to the rise of the market revolving around the child in general. This development
was due to the changes that occurred in views regarding children. Children have traditionally
been assigned high value in Japan (Hendry 1986: 34). On one hand, children were valued as
labor force for their contribution to the household’s economic activities, essential in the
traditional agricultural way of life. On the other hand, children were also seen as potential
successors of the family, which was an extended-type of household (so called
ie
) typical to
pre-war Japan (Iijima 1991). The beginning of the 20
th
century, however, saw a shift in
values attributed to children. Jones argues in his study that it was in this period that a modern
concept of childhood emerged which placed the child into the center of the family’s world
(Jones 2010: 125). The child was transformed into the central figure of the modern family
ideal and this altered patterns of childrearing in a significant way.
18
The expenditure was calculated from the sum spent for the festive dress of the child. 17% of
families spent between 100 000 and 150 000 Yen for the festive dress, and 23% spent over 200 000
Yen.
19
In 1977 a town employee earned around 280 000 Yen.
20
Weekly Sh
ū
kan Gendai 1980, November 20.
21
Information by the Japanese Association of Photograph Culture, quoted in the weekly Sh
ū
kan
Gendai (1980, November 11).
