<<        Generation gaps often occur between parents and children, which is led by the changes in the society over time. This phenomenon is significant for many people who live nowadays, for the world has been changing at a very fast rate these days. For my generation whose members are their ages at twenty years old, this holds true that the gap between our parents, who are around at their age of fifty years old, and us are obvious. Although there are so many differences between us, they can be focused on the increase the number of women workforce and influence of the foreign countries on our daily lives.        The first gap we can be observed that the greater ratio of women are or will be engaged in paid-work and are career oriented. For my mother�fs generation, it was more common to quit their jobs when they get married or even not to get a job but to train themselves to be a good housewife at home after they finish their schools. My mother was the first case and she quitted her job when she got engaged to my father. Similarly, most of mothers of my friends at the same age are also the case. However, this is unlikely to happen to our generation. That is, most of women are or will go into labour force and attempt to pursue career. This change is led by the improvement in education and qualification of women, coincided with the increase in the ratio of women attending tertiary education. Furthermore the recognition of women�fs right, though it is not sufficiently achieved, also contributed to these phenomena. In addition to the increase in female in the labour force, the gender segregation in occupation is also improved. That is, the larger number of women goes into the jobs that used to be dominated by males, which is usually skilled and high paid in comparison to the past.        The second gap between out generation is the increasing influence of the foreign culture and language on our daily lives. In old days, there were not as many interactions with foreign cultures and languages on the daily basis for ordinary people as today. They used to eat more Japanese food and to have Japanese traditional way of living. For example, they used to live on tatami and sleeping futon. This styles still remains in the country, and some people still prefer this way, which is the largely the case in my parents generation or up. Moreover, my parents generation did not study English or go to English speaking countries to study as much as we do now, thus the ratio of people who have experienced to live overseas is smaller in the generation. For our generation, however, the influence of foreign culture became huge and we our generation sometimes even prefer the new culture. Additionally, English became more important and many people came to be interested in. The number of people who goes overseas in a long term when they are young is also largely increased.        In short, the gaps between our parents and our own generation can be seen in terms of increased in women in labour force and in foreign culture and languages. There are millions of other differences, but these two seems to significant to me, as I am a female and studying at a foreign university. It should be, however, noted that the two generation also shares some commons such as value of life, friends, family and such.