Abstract
Subjective well-being, especially measured in terms of “happiness” and “life satisfaction”, is increasingly considered an important policy goal around the globe. The fact that the Japanese government decided in 2010 to focus its annual survey, the National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences, on happiness and its determinants is just one indicator of this importance also in Japan. Based on the most recent survey data from the years 2010 to 2012 this study analyses happiness differences across gender and age. An analysis of happiness differences between different age groups is especially interesting in the case of Japan, since the country is known for its relatively traditional, rigid social structures with predetermined life courses and carrier paths. Furthermore, research has revealed strong gender differences across various social indicators in Japan and these differences are also reflected in the correlates of happiness. Although previous happiness studies in Japan have also included gender in their analysis, the present study is unique in two respects: first, the underlying dataset is not only the most current one available for Japan, with over 9,000 observations, it is also very comprehensive. Second, in a subset of the data not only the “happiness level”, but also the “life satisfaction”, of the respondents is recorded, which allows a unique differentiation of the two concepts stratified by gender. Results indicate for example that, while household income affects happiness and life satisfaction equally for men and women, having no savings shows a stronger negative correlation with life satisfaction for women. Overall, the present study provides the first overview of recent happiness and life satisfaction data in Japan from a gender and age perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
Literally “commission on measuring happiness”:
http://www.esri.go.jp/en/prj/current_research/koufukudo/koufukudo-e.html. Unfortunately, with the change in government in late 2012, the new administration has dissolved this commission with the start of the new fiscal year in April 2013.
- 2.
- 3.
The cabinet office labels the years in accordance with the Japanese fiscal year system, which runs from the beginning of April of one year to the end of March of the following year. Thus, the surveys are from the fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011. However, as the surveys are always conducted at the end of the fiscal years, they were actually conducted in the calender years 2010, 2011, and 2012.
- 4.
Note that questions on happiness and life satisfaction have already been included in questionnaires prior to 2009 but not necessarily as the main focus.
- 5.
In the Japanese original, the word shiawase is used for happiness. Note that the choice of words could have an impact on response behavior (on the issue of different words for happiness in the Japanese language see e.g. Coulmas (2010); regarding different words for happiness in other languages, see Coulmas (2012)).
- 6.
One problem that occurred when pooling the data was that the household income classes had changed in the 2012 questionnaire (compared to the questionnaires in 2010 and 2011). For this reason the average values of each income class are used according to the transformation function z i = (x i − y i )/2, where
z i is the average household income of income class i,
x i is the upper income limit of class i and
y i is the lower income limit of class i.
For the last open end income classes (above 100.000.000 JPY and above 140.000.000 JPY) the average values 110.000.000 JPY and 150.000.000 JPY were chosen.
- 7.
T-test significant with t (9252) = − 11.0121 and p < 0.001.
- 8.
T-test with t(8804) = − 12.5998 and p < 0.001.
- 9.
The 2011 survey was conducted in March and was actually interrupted by the disaster on March 11. Analyzing the data in terms of comparing those who replied to the survey before March 11 and those who responded after that date, Tiefenbach and Kohlbacher (2013) did not find any significant differences. This is why we treat the whole 2011 data as “before the disaster” in this paper.
- 10.
The English word “life satisfaction” can actually have two meanings (a) the satisfaction with one’s life plan in terms of what goals one has achieved up until now and (b) the satisfaction with one’s living conditions or lifestyle. The Japanese translation “seikatsu manzoku-do” is rather referring to the latter definition and is therefore clearly attached to materialistic ideals. Nevertheless, the translation is often used without deeper reflection of possible misinterpretations, for example in the “Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement” (http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/projects/jstar/).
- 11.
To rescale from a 1 to 5 response scale (with 1 being most satisfied with one’s life) to a 0–10 response scale (with 10 being most happy), we first reversed the order of the 1–5 scale (so that 5 equals a most satisfied life). We then assumed that a response of 5 on the life satisfaction scale corresponds to a response of 10 on the happiness scale. Similarly we assumed a response of 1 on the life satisfaction scale corresponds to a response of 0 on the happiness scale. Finally, for the rest of the values we made a linear transformation using the formula: y = 2.5 (x − 1), where
y = life satisfaction on the new recoded scale
x = life satisfaction on the scale used in the NSLP survey.
For a similar rescaling scheme see Easterlin and Angelescu (2009).
- 12.
The household income come classes are: (1) under 1.000.000 JPY, (2) between 1.000.000 JPY and 3.000.000 JPY, (3) between 3.000.000 JPY and 5.000.000 JPY, (4) between 5.000.000 JPY and 7.500.000 JPY, (5) over 10.000.000 JPY a year.
The household saving classes are: (1) no savings, (2) under 3.000.000 JPY, (3) between 3.000.000 JPY and 5.000.000 JPY, (4) between 5.000.000 JPY and 10.000.000 JPY, (5) over 10.000.000 JPY.
- 13.
The age groups are: (i) children from zero to six, (ii) children in elementary and junior high school, (iii) children in high school and university students under the age of 20 years and (iv) children over the age of 20 years. The variables are coded from 0 to 3 with “3” including all respondents with three or more than three children.
- 14.
Happiness: t-test with t (2893) = − 6.0937and p < 0.001.
Life satisfaction: t-test with t (2889) = − 3.0648 and p < 0.002.
- 15.
The difference between the coefficients of life satisfaction and happiness is significant with χ2(1) = 12.20 and p < 0.001. Difference between the coefficients of life satisfaction for men and women is significant with chi2(1) = 3.34 and p < 0.067.
- 16.
Chow test with χ2(1) = 3.20 and p < 0.073.
- 17.
Chow test with χ2(1) = 3.83 and p < 0.050.
- 18.
Chow test with χ2(1) = 4.94 and p < 0.026.
- 19.
Due to the small sample size of females in management positions (N = 22) the happiness effects for women might not be visible in the analysis.
- 20.
Chow test with χ2(1) = 9.98 and p < 0.0016.
- 21.
“In some nations, that U-shape holds in raw data; in other countries it is necessary to use multiple regression” (Blanchflower and Oswald (2008)).
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Tiefenbach, T., Kohlbacher, F. (2014). Subjective Well-being Across Gender and Age in Japan: An Econometric Analysis. In: Eckermann, E. (eds) Gender, Lifespan and Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 53. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7829-0_12
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