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News: Reports of the 2005 SSM Survey (15 volumes) were published. [2008-03-10]

SSM Survey

SSM (Social Stratification and Social Mobility) project has surveyed Japanese people's social status, social mobility, and consciousness on class and inequality, with national representative random samples. In 1955 the first survey was conducted by the Japan Sociological Society. After that basically similar surveys are repeated at intervals of ten years by temporary organizations of volunteer sociologists. The 5th survey was conducted in 1995 by the 1995 SSM Research Group, supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research by Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. After the publication of the final report of the survey in 1998, the 1995 SSM Research Group dissolved itself. (Note that the SSM Survey Project does not enjoy organizational or financial support on a solid basis.) Now the data collected through the SSM Surveys are under the administration of 1995 SSM Kenkyuukai, a small committee represented by Seiyama Kazuo (University of Tokyo). Some sociologists have started to prepare for the 2005 SSM Survey.



Contents: 1995 SSM Survey | Former Suveys | SSM Researchers | Link | About this page
SSM Occupational Classification | Perl Scripts

1995 SSM Survey

Outline of the survey

The fifth survey, represented by Seiyama Kazuo (University of Tokyo), was conducted from October to November 1995. The sample was approximately 10,000 people aged 20-69 of the Japan electoral register. The sample were divided into three subsamples. For these subsamples, different questionnaires---A, B, and P---were used. Questionnaire A and B were built with so a similar architecture that many questions overlapped between them, although they include some unique questions designed for the specific purpose of each questionnaire. Questionnaire P is not similar to the other questionnaires, because it was designed for a special purpose.

For more details, see the summary in SSJ Data Archive (Japanese only).

Some of websites of the members of 1995 SSM Research Group provide infomation on the 1995 SSM Survey.

Availability of the data

Raw data of subsamples A and B are now available from SSJ Data Archive (Survey Number 0260). Note that the dataset of the subsample P is unavailable.

Publication by the 1995 SSM Research Group

Survey design, sampling scheme, questionnaires, and coding manual are contained in the following:

Questionnaires are also available from the following:

On the sampling scheme and sampling errors:

Basic tabulation:

Books based on the findings from the 1995 survey:

The final report of the 1995 survey:

Other books including results from the 1995 survey

In Japanese:

Special articles in academic journals

In English:

In Japanese:

Papers on the Web

In English:

In Japanese:

Papers published by 1997 were listed on the last pages of 1995 SSM Research series, Vol.21, based on self-reporting by the authors [PDF version by SRDQ]. There is no exhaustive list on the papers since 1998, as far as I know.

Findings from the 1985 and earlier surveys

Basic information

You can view the outlines and the questionnaires for the 1955-1985 SSM Surveys at the SRDQ System:

On the Web

In Japanese:

Published reports, books, and papers

In English:

In Japanese:


SSM Occupational Categories

(Ver. 4: 1997.6.2)

This tab-separated text file contains five fields:

This file is based on SSM Classification of Industries and Occupations (published by 1995 SSM Project). A text file version of the book was converted with a Perl script.

The classification into 8 categories is numbered as follows:

  1. professional
  2. administrator
  3. clerical worker
  4. sales and service worker
  5. skilled manual worker
  6. semi-skilled manual worker
  7. unskilled manual worker
  8. aguliculture, forestry, and fishery
A period (.) means an invalid value (such as unemployment).

The occupational prestige score is based on a SPSS program written by Murase Yoichi(Rikkyo University): see below the token "__END__" in the perl script (revised 1997.06.02).

The last field, old version of the category, is noted only if it is differ from the new version (that is, if the category is divided or combined).

[Japanese version is here]


Perl Script to Analyze Occupational Histories

These scripts (for Jperl Ver.4) process data in two stages:
ssm95a0.pl
reads raw data (text file with fixed fields), checks the data logically, assigns missing values, and write a binary data file.
reads the binary file and analyzes.
There is a example to calculate inter-firm mobility rate. You can modify the "MAIN: for" loop and the "print" routine, to make use of it for any aim.
Besides the 1995 SSM Data, you can apply the script to any data of similar structure, with some minor modifications.

The ssm95a0.pl script is incomplete. Data Layout (below __END__) are not included. Only the 1995 SSM Research Group members can get it. (Please mail to Tanaka Sigeto.) [Japanese version is here]


Homepages of 1995 SSM Research Group Members


Internet Resources on Inequality and Social Research


Caution!

This page is written by Tanaka Sigeto, who is one of the members of 1995 SSM Reasearch Group. It is just a personal page, so never represents the other members nor whole the project.
Tohoku Univ. / Faculty of Arts and Letters / Applied Japanese Linguistics / Tanaka Sigeto
E-mail: tsigeto@nik.sal.tohoku.ac.jp
Updated: 2008-04-17.