Happiness in Japan: Continuities and Discontinuities
Research focus June 2008 - October 2015
The new research focus was introduced in 2008 after three new research fellows had joined the DIJ. While quite different in orientation, it relates in several respects to the previous research focus on demographic change. With “happiness” and “life-satisfaction”, the DIJ puts at the centre of its research agenda a field of inquiry that has not only gained much attention in Japan – both in the media and in academia – but which is also of increasing importance internationally. The new research focus of “happiness” ties in with some of the issues already dealt with in the DIJ’s research focus of demographic change in Japan. This holds in particular for ageing, fertility decline and the emergence of a new underclass in the wake of socio-economic change. The high life expectancy enjoyed by the Japanese is testimony to a highly successful society. Yet the bliss of longevity brings in its wake structural changes for which both individuals and institutions are badly prepared. Reflecting the impending problems are catchwords such as “care hell”, which came into currency around the turn of the century. Despite Japan’s considerable economic success and high degree of material comfort, Japanese society as a whole is not happy, and much suggests that demographic developments are at the bottom of this discontent. Why it should be that gains in life expectancy go hand in hand with low fertility (due to hesitant reproductive behaviour) is a highly complex question. However, it can hardly be doubted that the change in reproductive behaviour, leading as it does in the long run to population decline, is an indication of collective uncertainty, if not dissatisfaction. A society of extremely low fertility has problems not just with the sustainability of its social security systems; it is also a society that fails to provide the middle generation with optimal conditions for satisfying a fundamental human desire, thus jeopardizing its own continuance. And it is this generation that experiences the transformation of what was for its predecessors an all-encompassing middle-class society into one consisting of winners and losers.
This is the backdrop against which the DIJ’s new research focus investigates life-satisfaction, the conditions of individual and collective happiness, as well as current discourses about it. For the past couple of decades, the problem of how to measure happiness has occupied a number of disciplines, with psychology and economics in the vanguard. A crucial question is whether and how concepts of happiness can be compared across nations and cultures. Once again Japan is of particular interest here. In terms of standard of living, Japan is on a par with the most advanced countries. It is the first non-Christian, non-white country to have accomplished this. Is Japan happier, therefore, than other countries outside the Western world? The DIJ's new research focus is designed to help answer this question, a far-reaching question that calls for the involvement of social structural analysis and welfare research as much as political analysis, media studies and cultural anthropology.
Completed Projects
Recent Publications
Kohlbacher, Florian; Tiefenbach, Tim
Happiness in Japan in Times of Upheaval: Empirical Evidence from the National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences
In: Journal of Happiness Studies pp. 333-366.
Hommerich, Carola
孤立感―なぜ不安を抱くのか?[Feeling isolated – explaining experiences of uncertainty]
In: Yamada, Masahiro; Kobayashi, Jun : データで読む現代社会:ライフスタイルとライフコース[Looking at present society through data: Lifestyle and lifecourse] Shinyōsha. pp. 178-181.
Hommerich, Carola; Kobayashi, Jun
Are Satisfied People Happy? Disentangling Subjective Well-being in Japan
In: Trommsdorff, Gisela; Assmann, Wolfgang R. : Forschung fördern. Am Beispiel von Lebensqualität im Kulturkontext UVK Verlagsgesellschaft. pp. 201-216.
Hommerich, Carola; Kobayashi, Jun; Mita, Akiko
なぜ幸福と満足は一致しないのか ─社会意識への合理的選択アプローチ─ (Why do Happiness and Satisfaction not Coincide?: A Rational Choice Approach to Social Psychology)
In: Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities. Seikei University pp. 87-99.
Hommerich, Carola
Feeling Disconnected: Exploring the Relationship Between Different Forms of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Japan
In: VOLUNTAS pp. 45-68.
Holdgrün, Phoebe Stella; Tiefenbach, Tim
Happiness Through Participation in Neighborhood Associations in Japan? The Impact of Loneliness and Voluntariness
In: Voluntas pp. 69-97.
Coulmas, Florian; Tiefenbach, Tim
Civil Society and Happiness: Japan and Beyond
In: Voluntas pp. 1-4.
Kohlbacher, Florian; Tiefenbach, Tim
Subjective Well-being Across Gender and Age in Japan: An Econometric Analysis
In: Eckermann, E. : Gender, Lifespan and Quality of Life: An International Perspective Springer Verlag. pp. 183-201.
Hommerich, Carola; Schöneck, Nadine M.
Vorzeigenationen unter Druck? Wahrnehmungen von sozialer Ungleichheit und Statuserwerbsprozessen – Deutschland und Japan im Vergleich . Tokyo. Working Papers. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien
Holdgrün, Phoebe Stella; Tiefenbach, Tim
Happiness, Civil Society Participation and Voluntariness: Analyzing the Case of Neighborhood Associations in Japan . 32 p. Working Papers. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien. Tokyo
Coulmas, Florian
Scientific social responsibility and happiness . 22 p. Working Papers. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien. Tokyo
Hommerich, Carola
Adapting to risk, learning to trust: Socioeconomic insecurities and feelings of disconnectedness in contemporary Japan
In: Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques pp. 429-455.
Kohlbacher, Florian; Tiefenbach, Tim
Happiness and Life Satisfaction in Japan by Gender and Age . 28 p. Working Papers. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien
Klien, Susanne
Von heiligen Bäumen, ritueller Trunkenheit und kollektiver Efferveszenz: Das Waldfest von Fuse
In: Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften der Ruhr-Universität Bochum : Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung pp. 179-192.
Kohlbacher, Florian; Tiefenbach, Tim
Subjektives Glücksempfinden und seine Einflussfaktoren im japanischen Kontext: Eine glücksökonomische Analyse der Ergebnisse des National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences [Subjective Perception of Happiness and its Influencing Factors in the Japanese Context: A Happiness-Economical Analysis of the Results of National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences]
In: Chiavacci, David; Wieczorek, Iris : Japan 2012: Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Vereinigung für sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung. pp. 151-176.
Hommerich, Carola
The advent of vulnerability: Japan’s free fall through its porous safety net
In: Japan Forum pp. 205-232.
Hommerich, Carola; Bude, Heinz; Lantermann, Ernst-Dieter
ステータス不安、孤立感、幸福度をめぐるメカニズムー日独比較調査の結果から (Mechanisms shaping status anxiety, feelings of disconnectedness and happiness – results of a German-Japanese comparative survey)
In: 中央調査報 (Chūō chōsa hō) pp. 1-5.
Hommerich, Carola
Trust and Subjective Well-being after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown: Preliminary Results
In: International Journal of Japanese Sociology pp. 46-64.
Events
Workshops
Improving the people’s lot? Different conceptions of well-being between promises and reality
DIJ Business & Economics Study Group
The Physical and Social Determinants of Mortality in the 3.11 Tsunami
DIJ Business & Economics Study Group
A Report on Life and Health in Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake
Symposia and Conferences
Deciphering the Social DNA of Happiness: Life Course Perspectives from Japan
Workshops
Well-being in Ageing Societies: Perspectives from China, Germany and Japan
Workshops
“Comparatively Happy” – Objective Precarity and Subjective Exclusion in Germany and Japan: Presentation and discussion of survey results
DIJ History & Humanities Study Group
Happy New Japan: The Ideology and Aesthetics of Happiness in Takarazuka Revue
DIJ Forum
Modernization and Life Satisfaction in Japan in a Comparative Perspective - A Theoretical and Empirical Approach
Workshops
"Comparatively Happy" – Objective precarity and perception of social exclusion in Germany and Japan: Discussion of the German and Japanese Questionnaire
DIJ Forum
Sex and the City: The Search for Kitto, Motto, Zutto Happiness in Manhattan and Tokyo
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