More men and women graduate from high school in Japan (97 percent) than in the United States (91.1 percent). Then, Japanese young people face rigorous entrance examinations that open or close the door to a university education. Understandably, Japanese students (and their parents) take entrance examinations very seriously. About half attend special “cram schools” to prepare for the exams, which means very late nights completing homework. Such hard work is one reason that many Japanese students nap in class—seen by teachers as the mark of a serious student (OECD, 2021)

Parenting is an expensive, lifelong commitment. As our society has given people greater choices about family life, more U.S. adults have decided to delay childbirth or to remain childless. In 1960, almost 90 percent of women between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine who had ever married had at least one child; since then, this proportion has declined to just 64 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022).