Difficulties in Social Survey and the Task for Sociologists

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the many difficulties social survey faces today in Japan. The response rate in social surveys has been decreasing for the last two decades. The reason why they fall is because a lot of subjects refuse to respond, or are absent from home at the time the survey is conducted, particularly in urban areas. But it is not because they are indifferent to social surveys. Rather, people became interested for what purpose, by what method the survey is carried out, and for whom it generates useful knowledge. Unconditional respect for social research conducted by universities has already disappeared in Japanese civil society. It is time for sociologists in Japan to show that social surveys and sociology as a science are useful to the people.