Marriage age

I just was writing an story and i was wondering if 24 is a common age for marriage in Japan or if it is very uncommon.And also is 28 a common age to have kids?sSorry if these questions sound stupid to some but i just want to make the story realistic.Thanks.=)

It is slightly below the current average, but not uncommon, at all.

Thanx uji =).

I just had a few more questions. 1)Was Misaki a heard of name in the 80s.2)What is the most common bed type in japan west bed or japanese futon.Thanx =)

For a story that takes place in the 80's it can be both types of bed. It depends what type of place they are living in? A larger place the person might have a regular western style bed, a smaller place they might want a futon, but that isn't really a decisive factor, you can still have a small place with a bed and a large place with futons.

Assuming that your story is about a young Japanese woman working as an Office Lady or furi-ta (part-time work) and living alone in a big city, typically her apartment would be a small living room (less than 12 square meter, maybe), a small kitchen and a bathroom. Every night she would pull out a futon and spread it out in her living room and store it again for the day the next morning. I have seen these tiny apartments with a western bed, but that leaves very little space for anything else.
Adding the touch that she would air her futon regularly would make it very realistic as you cannot pass an apartment building on a sunny day without all laundry and futons hanging outside. Another realistic touch would be to have lots of clothes and other stuff spread around the room. :-)
A young sarari-man would be in the same predicament.

I was a 24 year old female in the 80s. In fact, I got married when I was 25.

Japan in the 80s was the "bubble" period, meaning economy kept expanding and expanding like a tub full of bubbles (which eventually blew apart in the early 90s). Using a futon or bed completely depends on the person's taste or lifestyle, but a lot of young women in the days prefered to live surrounded by classy items.

It was and still is common for 24 year old single Japanese women to be living with her parents, and whether or not she lives alone, if she works full-time, she might be too tired to dry her futon every day. Often her futon will just lay there for days, or her mother will take care of it.

Misaki was heard of, and btw the term "freeter" did not exist in the 80s yet. In fact economy was so high in the 80s that there were full time jobs for every girl who wanted to work.

I forgot to mention that because the economy was so high, housing costed a fortune in the 80s. It was not common for 24 year old single girls to be living in big new houses. So she would most commonly be living in an old-fashioned house with parents or small apartment by herself and be surrounded by expensive items.

If she married a man with good income, and if they were smart enough to plan ahead, they would most commonly purchase a big new house in the suburbs. Couples who purchased smaller apartments would later have trouble selling them when they had kids, because in the 90s housing prices started to drop down.

On the other hand, women who earned a lot in the 80s and stayed single will start purchasing small apartments for her own in the 90s when prices came down.

I apologize but i have to ax one more question.how many children is it common to have in Japan?Thanx.

Very few families have more than 1 or 2 children these days.

Currently, According to the Japanese statistics; http://www.stat.go.jp/English/data/handbook/c02cont.htm
Average marriage age are:
Groom 30 years old
Bride 28 years old
And the trend is supporting even later marriage.

very interesting discussion..
Opi you may want, if you haven't done it already, look at Japanese real estate ads (there are sites in English)to give you an idea of how building and places look like. Obviously you have to look at older types buildings rather than recently built ones. I am a fan of Sujata Massey. most of her detective novels take place in Japan and her descriptions of her main character's apartment are realistic. She decribes the neighbourhood her character lives in (Yanaka in Tokyo) so well that I was able to follow the route from the subway station etc. this is the type of info that many readers love.