Cross- National Survey on Well-Being and Social Relations

Well-being is an important issue in recent social survey research and many surveys focus on subjective well-being, happiness, and quality of life with some measures or scales on certain items in questionnaires.  The measurement, however, is not free from differences on gender, culture, and other social conditions.  As for social values and general response tendencies to questionnaire surveys, we have repeatedly reported regional variations in our longitudinal and cross-national surveys over half a century by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (Yoshino, Nikaido & Fujita, 2009) (http://www.ism.ac.jp/~yoshino/index.htm and http://www.ism.ac.jp/ism_info_j/kokuminsei.html), under the paradigm of Cultural Linkage Analysis (Yoshino & Hayashi, 2002) and Cultural Manifold Analysis (Yoshino, Nikaido, Fujita, 2009).　 

The present study examined the relationships between well-being and social factors using our cross-national surveys, “a study of statistical science on health and culture: cross-cultural study on dynamics of social disparity and life”, carried out during 2002-2010 in four western countries (USA, Germany, France, UK) and three East Asia countries/ region (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan).  The survey was carried out on the target population of adult residents in each country/ region, with the sample size of some 1000.  Random Digit Dialing (RDD) telephone survey using CATI system was conducted in in the four western countries and Japan whereas a face-to-face interviewing was conducted in the South Korea and Taiwan.  By multivariate analyses, we show how social and cultural factors are related with several indices on well-being as well as the similarity and dissimilarity of these Western and East Asian countries.  We discuss the characteristics and limitations by considering methodological issues.

Reference

Yoshino R, Hayashi C. (2002).  An overview of cultural link analysis of national character, Behaviormetrika, 29,125-141.

Yoshino R, Nikaido K, Fujita T. (2009).　Cultural manifold analysis(CULMAN)of national character : paradigm of cross-national survey, Behaviormetrika 36, 2, 89-113