Globalizing the Household in East Asia

A quarter of a century ago, Smith, Wallerstein, and Evers put forth the thesis that the household is not merely a unit of consumption dependent upon a larger economy, but is instead the foundation of society and economy reaching from local to global scales. Given this thesis, the apparent demise of the household in many societies presents the portent of increasingly severe limitations on national economies and, ultimately, the capitalist world system. East Asia is not immune from the stresses on the household that are being documented in the West.