Japanese Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 1884-2755
Print ISSN : 0021-5414
ISSN-L : 0021-5414
Volume 19, Issue 1
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • Yuichi Minakawa
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 2-17,121
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: May 07, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In the process of structural transformation of capitalistic economy accompanying the high economic growth of Japan in the 30's of Showa, the regional problems such as regional difference of income, over-concentration of population and capital in metropolitan region and excessive out-flow of population in rural districts came into question one after another.
    This report aims at clarifing the relation between inter-regional differetials and uneven development of economy in the present phase.
    In Japan, there was remarkably uneven development between agriculture and manufacture in the pre-war period, and in parallel with it the inter-regional differences of income was very large.
    As the result of marked development of heavy and chemical industries in the 30's of Showa, this inter-sectional discrepancy in industry was greatly intensified.
    Then, in order to see the change of regional differences in economic power from the pre-war to post-war period, I divided the whole country into 16 economic regions, and examined the percentage distribution of the amount of production income and personal income of these regions in 1930, 1935, 1940, 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1964 respectively, and further followed the changes of inter-regional differentials in the index number of per-head personal income.
    Those figures proved that, in the period of high economic growth the degree of concentration of the amount of production income and personal income to the three central industrial regions has augmented markedly, or in other words, the regional concentration of economic power has been intensified much more, but reversely the inter-regional differentials of the level of per-head income and consumption had contracted.
    The main reason of this contrariety may be ascribed to the excessive city-ward movement of labor-force in the agriculture at this period.
    But how was this excessive out-flow produced? We may count as one of the most important conditions the change of social psychological effect produced by the inter-regional differentials of income and level of living. This marked change was yielded with the transformation of social and economic structure in both urban and rural communities.
    The amount of per-head income of farm households was only 40% of that of city-dwellers, so the difference of income and level of living between urban and rural was very large.
    But this marked differentials rather symbolized the heterogeneity of the mode of life between urban and rural communities, and in spite of their poor income the stability of farmer's life was very high.
    Now, the level of living in the rural district rose markedly, and the differentials between urban and rural were reduced considerably. In accordance with this, the heterogeneity of mode of life almost faded away.
    In spite of this levelling tendency of regional living conditions which is called urbanization of rural life, the inter-regional diffentials of income still remain on the small scale.
    But the ballancing effort of this slight differentials of income has provoked the excessive city-ward movement of farm population.
    To consider the problem of regional income difference of Japan at the present, it is needed to grasp it as the contradictive result produced by the uneven development of regional economy in such a levelling tendency of income and living conditions.
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  • Tominaga, Matsubara, Hata, Naoi, Maeda, Nohara
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 18-68,120
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 05, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Analyses of consumer behavior in economics have much developed theoletically and empirically in recent years, but empirical studies have shown us that we need a theoretical framework with which we can treat systematically sociological and socio-psychological factors affecting consumer behavior. Our study is the first step to develop a sociological theory of consumer behavior.
    We started with the ideas that consummer behavior of families could be regarded as decision-making processes in which families select a certain pattern of consumption from various alternatives, and that figures of each family given by The Family Income and Expenditure Survey by The Office of Prime Minister could be regarded as the results of these decision-making processes. Our main steps of analysis was, therefore, that, firstly, we regarded the decision-making process as a black-box, and, secondly, we interred the content of the black-box with the data given by the Survey. But in this case we needed a technique of multi-factor analysis because the black-box was consisted of various quantitive and qualitative factors, and we used Hayashi's qualification theory with which we could treat two kinds of factors simultaneously.
    We decided nine outside standards, such as living, food, housing, clothing expenditure etc., to be explained, and ten explaining factors, such as income, occupation, industry, age, number of family members, etc.
    The following are main outcomes of our factor analysis.
    (1) When we take up absolute amount of monetary spending as outside standards, income explains a large part of the variation both at a gross level (a total amount of spending or saving) and at a detailed level. In case of housing or durable goods, however, income does not explain the variation so sufficiently as in other items, and it is noted the fact that a considerable part of the variation of food expenditure is explained by the number of family members, and that of residual expenditure occupation.
    (2) When we take up spending ratio as outside standards, the explaining force of income is relatively weak, and three sociological factors, i.e. occupation, number of family members, age, are influential to a certain degree, adding to income. So we can call them tentatively the four deciding factors in consumer behavior.
    (3) Next, we analyzed how each category in the four deciding factors affected consumption decision for each item. Concerning income factor, we reaffirmed a lot of findings given by econimists. The analysis about occupation factor, the most important sociological variable, showed us an interesting fact, that the propensity to consume of executives of corporations and white collar workers is higher than that of merchants'craftsmen and self-employed group. These two groups have also a clearly different pattern of choice at a detailed level.
    Of couse, our study does not completely suffice us, but we believe that we could understand, at least, part of the content of a black box, in which families with various attributes selected a certain pattern of consumption.
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  • -His View of Theory and His Sociological Theory-
    Shigeru Hashimoto
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 69-82,118
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: October 20, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    We must know “what is a theory” and “what is a strategy of reaching a theory” before we construct a sociological theory. But there are few sociologists who have met this condition. G.C. Homans is one of those who have constructed sociological theories after making these questions clear.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine Homans' sociological theory from the following aspects, (I) what is a theory? (II) what is the difference between his theory and the functional theory ? (III) what are the general propositions of his theory? (IV) where is his position in history of sociology?
    (I) A theory, according to Homans, must meet the following conditions. It consists, (i), of a set of concepts or conceptual scheme, and (ii), of a set of propositions and the propositions form a deductive system. (iii), some of the propositions of a scientific theory must be contingent, in the sense that experience is relevent to their truth or falsity or to that of propositions derived from them.
    (II) The functional theory consists of the general propositions about the conditions of social equilibrium. Has it met the requirements of theory? No. Because the general propositions are noncontingent and no definite conclusions can be drawn from them. A alternative theory is Homans' theory. It consists of the general propositions about the behavior of men.
    (III) The general propositions of his theory or exchange theory, which envisages social behavior as an exchange of rewarding or costly activity between men, are five. They are “stimulus generalization proposition”, “success proposition”, “value proposition”, “diminishing value proposition” and “justice proposition”. Homans explains social phenomena, showing how they follow as conclusions from these propositions in deductive systems.
    (IV) This Homans' approach is not Durkhaim's but Simmel's approach.
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  • Kanji Naito
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 83-104,117
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: October 20, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In 1641, Nagasaki was officially recognized as the only trade port in Japan. But actually the port was already opened in 1579, and the city formation had also been taking place since then. Meanwhile, there had been many thousands of martyrs and exiles among citizens as well as among foreign missionaries in consequence of the persecution to Christianity.
    Kyushu University owns the old census registers called “Ninbetsucho” of Hirado-cho in Nagasaki, some of which, in perfect preservation, are taken up as the data in this paper. Besed on them, I intend to examine the dynamic movements of family in those days. This study covers 29 years, from 1634 (K an-ei 11) to 1659 (Manji 1), during which the war of Amakusa broke out and the trade monopolization mention above took place.
    Some of our findings are as follows.
    Dividing the population into houseowners (Ie-mochi) and tenants as done in the census, we can observe that the former group contained a considerable number of large households. But houseowners at that time generally kept many domestics or servants other than normal family member of servants was almost as many as the other. So if we exclude them from the household members, the number of normal member of both types does not differ very much. Moreover, considering the relationship between normal members, many of them were in- or un- complete families.
    It is considered so far that ambitious people who gathered there from many parts of the country were stimulated by the rapid urbanization in Nagasaki. We tried to analize these mobile circumstances appeared in the family register of 1642, which alone had the “descriptive” style just suiting our purpose. According to this, people born in the city were less than half, and more than 80 % of their fathers were immigrants. As for sex distinction, the in-moving mobility rate of males was higer than that of females. We can confirm that they married native-born females in Nagasaki after moving into the city. In short, families in those days, in our impression, were the units of«laboring»rather than«living».
    To add the effects of the trade fluctuations to these, therefore, family continuity was very low in general. There were little cases of creation of branch families, too. On the other hand, the residential mobility after moving into the city was fairly high. An example illustrating such a mobility at that time was the case of converts, so called «Korobi». For instance, in 1634«Korobi»amounted to 60% of the population, which in 1659 decreased to 18% including the dead.
    Through the analysis of family dynamics, the image of early Nagasaki as a growing «Western City»could clearly be seen.
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  • [in Japanese]
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 105-109
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: October 20, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (714K)
  • [in Japanese]
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 109-112
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: October 20, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (648K)
  • [in Japanese]
    1968 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 113-115
    Published: July 01, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: October 20, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (475K)
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