Is It Possible to Profile Non-participants in Community Activities?: Background Analysis Based on the Classification of Causes for Non-participation

Abstract

In Japan, the national government has actively launched many policies which try to improve local governance, regional disaster prevention, and revitalization of local communities through the participation of community activities for nearly 20 years. However, contrary to government expectations, the results of the governmental survey revealed that there are still a lot of people who do not participate in their community's activities. In such a situation, it is important to clarify the characteristics of non-participation.

The purposes of this paper are twofold: investigating the actual situation of people who do not participate in community activities by analyzing the nation-wide social survey entitled “Trend Survey of the Japanese National Character,” and discussing future measures based on the results. To achieve these purposes, we have conducted Latent Class Analysis to grasp the attitude of non-participants about their residential area and extracted three latent classes. Furthermore, we have conducted additional analysis which explores the relations between the extracted latent classes and some other political awareness. Based on these results, theoretical implications and applications are discussed.