In light of recent attention to the declining birthrate in Japan, public support for childrearing has been increasingly recognized as important. This paper examines the issue of the study of defamilialization of childrearing in Japan. First, it surveys existing studies of the problem of childrearing by families in the context of the "modern family" paradigm. These studies oppose the perspective that regards family as the only cause of childrearing problems. Through this relativization, these problems are re-oriented toward problems of social structure and recognition of the importance of public support for families or informal support networks.
Second, this paper reviews the debate on the defamilialization of childrearing that was based on this tendency. Comparative studies of the welfare regime have examined Japanese familialism in its historical, cultural, and structural context during modernization. At the same time, the "sociology of care" has revealed the complicated structure of the close competition between defamilialization as a reality and familialism as the social norm.
Thus, studies of defamilialization have revealed that (1) familialism of childcare is not universal, (2) social support for childrearing by family is valid, and (3) defamilialization is a more reliable guarantee of children's welfare because it tends to stabilize the family-based childrearing environment. These points exhibit an affinity with the slogan of the International Year of the Family (1994).
However, the above-mentioned studies focused only on support for family-based childrearing and are limited in that they fail to include children who cannot be reared by their own families. The studies are based on an assumption of "one body" of family and children.
Considering this, and to conclude, this paper highlights the significance of the sociological study of the "alternative" phase of defamilialization.

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