Some Aspects of Mathematical Sociology in Japan

Abstract

Mathematical sociology in Japan has developed through the quantitative data analysis of sociological research.
Mathematical sociology has two aspects : measurement of social phenomena and its analysis by mathematical models. Nowadays, when we have some qualitative data which are gotten as classification or order relation, we often utilize nonmetric multidimensional scalings. Hayashi's quantification of data and his minimum dimension analysis (MDA) are as well known in Japan as SSA and MDS.
Recently, some sociologists are interested in the individual differences model and threemode factor analysis. These models belong to multidimensional scalings and are useful to know the individuality of a social object. As an example, I deal with the social characteristic of seven Japanese cities about their population in 1960, 1965 and 1970. The social characteristic can be shown by the size of components of each city and the coefficient of correlation between each pair of components. In 1970, Tokyo, Yokohama and Kitakyushu are separated from Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. In the large scale, however, there had been no great change in the structures of population of these cities for ten years.
Also, I should pay attention to the investigations of social mobility which have been carried on since 1952. Some scholars try the measurement of mobility, variance analysis and path analysis in the intergenerational mobility. Then, they compare the data of Tokyo with those of chicago. They conclude that the mobility of Tokyo is more than that of chicago and one's social status is depend on rather his achievement than ascription.