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Feeling Disconnected: Exploring the Relationship Between Different Forms of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Japan

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of social connectedness in motivating citizens to take an active interest in society and to engage in communal activities. Japan is used as an example of a society which has been diagnosed with a weakening of social bonds, as well as with an increase in social inequality and precarity in recent years. Structural equation modeling was applied to data of a nationwide survey from 2009, to test the assumption that feelings of disconnectedness from society exert a negative effect on civic engagement that needs to be differentiated from effects of general social trust. Results support this hypothesis and further indicate that it is not socioeconomic precarity per se that lowers chances for civic engagement, but its negative impact on the subjective evaluation of both the quality of social networks and one’s belonging to and value for society. As precarity, however, enforces the negative effects of low social capital, this implies that specially the socially disadvantaged are less likely to participate.

Résumé

Cet article analyse le rôle des liens sociaux pour motiver les citoyens à prendre une part active dans la société et à participer à des activités communes. Le Japon y est cité comme exemple d’une société dans laquelle ont été identifié un affaiblissement des liens sociaux, ainsi qu’une augmentation de l’inégalité sociale et de la précarité au cours des dernières années. La modélisation par équations structurelles a été appliquée aux données d’une enquête nationale de 2009 afin de tester l’hypothèse selon laquelle le sentiment de déconnexion de la société exerce un effet négatif sur l’engagement civique qui doit être différencié des effets de la confiance sociale générale. Les résultats confirment cette hypothèse et, de plus, indiquent que ce n’est pas la précarité socioéconomique en soi qui réduit les chances de l’engagement civique, mais ses effets négatifs sur l’évaluation subjective de la qualité des réseaux sociaux, de l’appartenance d’une personne à la société et de la valeur que celle-ci représente pour la société. Toutefois, la précarité appliquant les effets négatifs de la faiblesse du capital social, cela signifie que ce sont surtout les personnes socialement défavorisées qui sont moins susceptibles d’y participer.

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Rolle der sozialen Verbundenheit bei der Motivation von Bürgern, ein aktives Interesse an der Gesellschaft zu zeigen und sich an Gemeindeaktivitäten zu beteiligen. Japan wird als Beispiel für eine Gesellschaft angeführt, in der in den vergangenen Jahren soziale Verbindungen schwächer geworden und soziale Ungleichheit und Prekarität angestiegen sind. Ein Strukturgleichungsmodell wurde auf Daten einer 2009 durchgeführten landesweiten Befragung angewandt, um die Annahme zu prüfen, dass das Gefühl einer fehlenden Verbindung zur Gesellschaft negative Auswirkungen auf bürgerschaftliches Engagement hat, die von den Effekten generalisierten Sozialvertrauens zu unterscheiden sind. Die Ergebnisse unterstützen diese Hypothese und weisen weiter darauf hin, dass es nicht die sozioöknomische Prekarität an sich ist, die die Bereitschaft zu bürgerschaftlichem Engagement mindert, sondern ihre negative Auswirkung auf die subjektive Bewertung der Qualität der sozialen Netzwerke und des individuellen Zugehörigkeitsgefühls und Wertes innerhalb der Gesellschaft. Da die Prekarität jedoch die negativen Effekte geringen Sozialkapitals verstärkt, wird dadurch impliziert, dass insbesondere sozial benachteiligte Personen weniger zur Partizipation neigen.

Resumen

El presente documento analiza el papel de la conectividad social en la motivación de los ciudadanos para interesarse de manera activa en la sociedad y comprometerse en actividades comunales. Japón se utiliza como ejemplo de sociedad a la que se le ha diagnosticado un debilitamiento de los lazos sociales, así como también un aumento de la desigualdad social y de la precariedad en los últimos años. Se aplicó la modelización de ecuaciones estructurales a los datos de una encuesta realizada a nivel nacional en 2009, para poner a prueba el supuesto de que los sentimientos de desconectividad de la sociedad ejercen un efecto negativo sobre el compromiso cívico que es necesario ser diferenciado de los efectos de la confianza social general. Los resultados apoyan esta hipótesis e indican además que no es la precariedad socioeconómica per se la que disminuye las posibilidades de compromiso cívico, sino su impacto negativo sobre la evaluación subjetiva tanto de la calidad de las redes sociales como de la pertenencia a las mismas y el valor para la sociedad. Sin embargo, dado que la precariedad ejecuta los efectos negativos del capital social bajo, esto implica que son especialmente los socialmente desfavorecidos los que tienen menos probabilidades de participar.

本文分析了社会联系在鼓励公民积极参与社会和参加社区活动等方面的作用,以日本社会为例,日本的 社会联结减弱,最近几年 社会不平等和不安全感加剧。假设脱离社会的感觉会对公民参与产生负面影响,在从2009年开始的全国调查的数据中,采用了结构方程模型来验证这一假设,脱离社会的感觉对公民参与的负面影响 需要和总体社会信任对公民参与的影响进行区分。研究结果证实脱离社会的感觉会对公民参与产生负面影响,而且还进一步说明, 并非是由于社会经济不稳定本身 而是由于社会经济不稳定对社会联系网的质量的主观评价 以及 个人社会归属感和社会价值感的负面影响削弱了公民参与的积极性。 但是,由于缺乏安全感对社会中掌握资本较少的群体存在负面影响,因此, 社会劣势的团体的参与可能尤其小。

تحلل هذه المقالة دور الترابط الإجتماعي في تحفيز المواطنين على الإهتمام الفعال بالمجتمع والإنخراط في الأنشطة المجتمعية. تم إستخدام اليابان كمثال على المجتمع الذي تم تشخيصه بضعف الروابط الإجتماعية، كذلك مع زيادة في عدم المساواة الإجتماعية وعدم الإستقرار في السنوات الأخيرة. تم تطبيق نماذج المعادلة الهيكلية لبيانات من إستطلاع رأي وطني إبتداءا˝ من عام 2009، لإختبار فرضية أن مشاعر الإنقطاع عن المجتمع تمارس تأثير سلبي على المشاركة المدنية التي تحتاج إلى أن يتم تمييزها من آثار الثقة الإجتماعية العامة. النتائج تدعم هذه الفرضية وكذلك الإشارة إلى أنه ليس عدم الإستقرارالإجتماعي والإقتصادي في حد ذاته يخفض فرص المشاركة المدنية، ولكن تأثيره السلبي على التقييم الموضوعي لكل من نوعية الشبكات الإجتماعية و تبعية الشخص وقيمة المجتمع. كعدم الإستقرار، مع ذلك، يفرض الآثار السلبية لإنخفاض رأس المال الإجتماعي، هذا يعني أن خصوصا˝ المحرومين إجتماعيا˝ هم أقل إحتمالا˝ للمشاركة.

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Notes

  1. The relative poverty rate is calculated as the share of people with incomes below 50 percent of the median disposable income.

  2. The documentary particularly caused a stir, as it drew attention to rising numbers of elderly people who die alone and are discovered only weeks or sometimes months later, because they lived alone with no or only distant social connections. This phenomenon has been called “lonely death” (kodokushi).

  3. As, i.e., described for the group of “solitary non-employed persons” by Genda (2013).

  4. An example for such behavior in Japan is the group of so-called hikikomori. This term describes adolescents or young adults who withdraw completely from social life, by shutting themselves into their room for weeks, months, or even longer (Zielenziger 2006).

  5. One important step in this direction was the establishment of the Law to Promote Specific Nonprofit Activities in 1998 (cp., i.e. Pekkanen 2006, p. 22f.). The highly organized volunteer infrastructure that resulted from this could be witnessed after the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 (Avenell 2012).

  6. For details on specific characteristics of Japanese civil society, please compare: Pekkanen (2006), Taniguchi (2010), Taniguchi and Marshall (2014), Tsujinaka and Pekkanen (2007), Vinken et al. (2010), Wissink and Hazelzet (2012), Yamauchi (2011).

  7. Unfortunately, there are only numbers from 2003 available regarding this question.

  8. The survey was designed by the author and financed by the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ). Fieldwork was carried out by Chūō Chōs Sha.

  9. An estimation of the model with incomplete data would exhibit less bias than excluding cases with missing values from the analysis (Byrne 2010, p. 359). However, an estimation of the model with missing values only yielded marginally different results than with the delimited data set. Therefore, the author decided to proceed with the data set from which missing data had been deleted.

  10. The lowest income group earns less than 1,120,000 yen. This corresponds to less than 50 % of the official median income in 2009, which is the threshold set by the Japanese government to define relative poverty. Respondents who fall into this category are highly likely to face socioeconomic difficulties. Middle incomes are divided into two groups with incomes ranging from 1,120,000 to 2,240,000 yen (50–100 % of median income) categorized as lower middle, and incomes ranging from 2,240,000 to 3,360,000 yen (100–150 % of median income) grouped as upper middle of the income range. The highest income group earns over 3,360,000 yen, which equals more than 150 % of the median income.

  11. Share of respondents who replied affirmatively.

  12. The significant χ 2 seemingly indicates that the fit of model to the data is not adequate. However, as Chi-square is sensitive to sample size, a non-significant χ 2 is difficult to achieve and has proven unrealistic in most empirical research (Byrne 2010, pp. 76–77, Bagozzi and Yi 2012, p. 28). To address these limitations of the χ 2, a number of alternative, more practical fit indices have been developed, which are commonly used as adjuncts to the χ 2 statistic. The author here uses the four indices discussed above.

  13. Detailed results for the CFA model are available from the author upon request.

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  1. German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Jochi Kioizaka Bldg. 2F, 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo , 102-0094, Japan

    Carola Hommerich

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  1. Carola Hommerich
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Correspondence to Carola Hommerich.

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Hommerich, C. Feeling Disconnected: Exploring the Relationship Between Different Forms of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Japan. Voluntas 26, 45–68 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-014-9525-3

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