A Note on Social Capital

—— From a Viewpoint of Cross-national Comparative Methodology ——

Abstract

This paper presents some possible new ways to interpret the scaling of social capital and cross-national comparability of survey data. We argue that they are more sensitive to cultural differences of various countries, including Japan which is the main focus of this study. Among others, we think over the following question and give a possible answer to it: Social network is known to be closely related to good health. Why is the Japanese life span so long even though their social network is fairly limited ? We call attention to some data and knowledge on human relations which we have acquired through our past studies of cross-national and longitudinal surveys on national character. Finally we give some comments for policy-making on social capital in our aging society.