Japanese General Social Survey 2010 (JGSS 2010)

Description of the situation in family, everyday life, home and living environment. Gender role. Health. Knowledge of foreign languages. Occupation. Political issues.

1. Face-to-face interview: Occupation: sex; age (year of birth); employment in the last week; reasons why not employed; employment in the past; age at dismissal of last job; weekly working time in full-time occupation and in possible side jobs; professional position; registration with a temporary employment agency; supervisor function; commuting; travel time to the workplace (hours and minutes); employment in the public service, in a self-employed company, headquarters or branch of a company; sector; profession (ISCO); weekly working days; regular number of hours per week; length of service in years; company size; union membership; job satisfaction; intention to terminate employment; endangerment of employment; assessment of opportunities to find an equivalent job in the case of job loss; current job search.

Family: marital status; description of the employment situation of the partner: weekly working hours in full-time jobs and possible part-time jobs, professional status, supervisor function, sector, profession (ISCO), number of working days per week, regular weekly working hours; length of service in years, size of company; age of partner; cohabitation with the partner; living together with one or both parents of the respondent or his or her partner; details of the respondent´s and partner’s parents: age, marital status, current employment of the parents; number of children (including deceased); details of all children: sex, still living in the parental household, age, marital status, occupation; household size; household composition; information on all family members with regard to: kinship, sex and age; number of family members who are temporarily separated from the family, their relationship to the respondent and reason for living apart from the family; head of the household; sources of household income and main source of income; self-assessment on an top-bottom scale; degree of urbanization; gross household income of the last year; income of the respondent and his or her spouse (n each case altogether and in the main occupation); number of siblings of the respondent and his or her spouse (including deceased); position in the line of siblings.

Related to the respondent when he was 15 years old: size of the place of residence at that time; village character of the place of residence; parent’s style of upbringing; professional position and profession (ISCO) of the father; size of the company of the father´s employer company at that time; professional position of the mother; educational level of respondent, partner and parents; for the respondent and the partner was asked: degree or abandonment of the last school attended; school year if still attending school; attendance of a technical school.

First job after graduation: duration between graduation and start of work; professional position and profession (ISCO) of the respondent; company size.

2. Self-administered questionnaire (drop off): two different questionnaires are used. Methodically variations of questioning for individual questions or question complexes.

Questionnaire A: Daily life: television consumption per day; number of books read monthly; frequency of reading newspapers; communication media: computer use (at home, at work/school), use of mobile phone, searching for information via Internet or mobile phone, Internet shopping, online banking and creation of web pages; frequency of use of a mobile phone; sending e-mails via PC or mobile phone; frequency of: sports activities, family dinners, dinners with friends, cooking dinner, grocery shopping, laundry, house cleaning and disposal of waste; frequency of holidays longer than two days.

Health: self-assessment of the state of health; smoker status; attempts to quit smoking; drinking habits; traumatic experiences in the last five years; satisfaction with: living environment, leisure activities, family life, financial situation of the household, friendships, health, partnership; happiness.

Foreign languages: self-assessment of English skills (language and reading skills); application of English skills: business, social, movies, music, books, Internet use, overseas travel; advantageousness of improved knowledge of English for work, hobby or personal relationships; preferred time for English lessons at school; English lessons are given before secondary school (junior high school).

Living conditions and politics: housing status and type of house (detached house or housing complex); personal use of ecological products: solar energy, night current, gas-powered hot water heating with domestic power generation (Ecowill), heat exchangers (Ecocute), low-emission vehicle (hybrid cars); years in the dwelling; connection with the place of residence; change in the financial situation in the last few years; comparison of the financial situation with other Japanese families and in comparison to the financial situation in the own youth; self-assessment of the rank of success in school; assessment opportunities to improve one´s standard of living (social mobility); expected development of the pension or pension level in comparison with the current pension level; self-assessment of the social class affiliation; concern about personal future financial situation; preference for governmental or individual responsibility for subsistence, medical care and care of elderly people as well as education and child rearing (welfare state); own political classification (conservative or progressive); estimation of the personal tax burden; assessment of the adequacy of government spending for selected areas (e.g. education, national security); attitude to the balance between social services and tax burden (strengthening of public social services through tax increases versus tax reductions and a weakening of the social welfare); attitude regarding: political influence of the citizens (efficacy), complexity of policy, duty to participate in elections, observance of election promises by Members of Parliament; attitude towards legalising euthanasia; attitude to death penalty; attitude to dealing with criminals; attitude to the government´s responsibility for income transfer from high-income to low-income families; party preference; parties that are able to take over governmental responsibility; attitude to an increasing proportion of foreigners in the neighbourhood; burden of crime: dangerous residential area; victimisation: experienced housebreaking or attack; business ethics and environmentally friendly behavior of a company as a motive for the change of the personal purchasing behaviour; attitudes to selected political statements regarding child benefit, abolition of tuition fees and motorway tolls, reduction of CO2 emissions, increase of the minimum wages, equal pay for equal work, abolition of the tax deduction for the spouse; appropriate percentage of the consumer tax; political behaviour of parties according to the party program versus situational; organ donor card; willingness to donate organs if brain death is detected; willingness to heart transplantation; opinion on the newly introduced Japanese jurisprudence; opinion on the imposition of the death penalty for felony by jurors.

Family and social environment: ideal number of children; preference for a boy or a girl; attitude to the three-generation household; preferred form of burial; reasons against a grave place and/or for the desire for a joint grave or cremation; attitude to the choice of the married name; opinion on family name for children when married parents keep their birth name; gender role and marriage norms: attitude towards divorce and occupation of the wife; relationship between happiness and marriage; men and household management; role of the woman or man in occupation and marriage; influence of the occupation of mothers on children; need of children in a marriage, a man´s career is more important than a woman´s career; general personal trust; assessment of human nature (scale: the human being as basically good or evil); membership in selected associations and organizations; membership of the household in a neighbourhood association and frequency of participation in neighbourhood activities; volunteer work and last year´s commitment; religious affiliation and religiosity; institutional trust: confidence in large enterprises, ecclesiastical organisations, schools, ministries and government agencies, unions, media, hospitals, courts, scientists, Members of parliament, local council, self-defence forces, police and financial institutions.

Questionnaire B: everyday life: television consumption per day; number of books read monthly; frequency of reading newspapers; frequency of use of a mobile phone; sending e-mails via PC or mobile phone; frequency of sporting activities; actual and preferred frequency of domestic and overseas journeys longer than two days; purpose of this trip; frequency of: Family dinners, dinners with friends, cooking dinner, grocery shopping, laundry, house cleaning and disposal of waste; frequency of video games or computer games, buy lottery tickets, Lotto, Toto, horse bets and more, play Pachinko.

Health: traumatic experiences in the last five years; personal sense of happiness (EASS scale); full-time activity of the respondent and his wife at a non-profit institution; solidarity felt by colleagues; personal towards the colleagues; self-assessment of the state of health; perceived impairment of the everyday life with moderate activities and climbing stairs; impairments to work or daily work activities in scope and care due to physical or mental stress mental problems; impairment of normal work by pain in the last month or social activities due to health problems; mental health in the last month: calm and balanced, energetic, depressed; chronic diseases; allergies (neurodermatitis, hay fever, asthma, food allergy); impairment by itching skin; body size in centimeters; body weight in kilograms; smoking habits; years of smoking; drinking habits; frequency of physical activity; regular health checks; worries about own body shape and reasons for these worries; opinion on respondent´s weight; frequency of doctor´s visits in recent years; refusal to consult a doctor despite illness and the reasons for this refusal; type of health insurance; experience with oriental medicine treatment (e.g. acupuncture); concerns about financial difficulties and future lack of access to medical care; general support person, for financial problems and concrete help e.g. in the household or in child care; personal trust; environmental pollution at home (air and water pollution, noise pollution, exclusion of daylight); social and economic infrastructural characterisation and security of the residential area; feeling of temporal abundance, inner peace and loneliness in the daily life; frequency of selected relaxation (e.g. sauna, nature, listening to music); enjoying life; flu vaccination; fear of a new flu strain; own or influenza disease of family members since May 2009; family members in need of care; respondent is the main caregiver; fear of aging with regard to independence, independent decisions and financial dependency.

Additionally coded was: size of location; questionnaire form A or B; interview duration; interview date (month and day); collection date of the drop-off questionnaire; weighting factor.

Interviewer rating: willingness of the respondent to cooperate; understanding of questions; character of the living environment; order of face-to-face interview and self-administered questionnaire.