An Evaluation of Government and Stratification: Fairness and Nuclear Problem after the Great East Japan Earthquake

• In Event: 4141 - Cross-border Coalitions and Movements for Social Justice

Abstract

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake brought enormous damage across much of Eastern Japan. The post-disaster restoration and nuclear plant reactivation remain major political issues in Japan, however, the association between social consciousness and social stratification is not clear. Although self-help and privatization are important issues in Japan, role of the government would be a big problem. This study uses original survey data from three areas, Fukushima, Sendai, and Tokyo, to examine the relationship between a person’s social status and his/her attitudes on current society. The results shows an effect of age, education, residence years, relational resource, evacuation dummy, and self reported social stratification on government evaluation after the Tohoku disaster. The government evaluation is most influenced by feelings of social unfairness and personal life satisfaction. Women's personal life satisfaction is strongly determined by their social status. About on male data, evacuated people are less satisfied with their personal lives. Relational resource has an effect on evaluation, thus people who had more relation tend to have positive evaluation. It means local origin people tend to say the government works well. We found associations between social stratification and the evaluation of government, and unfairness on current society. A new finding is the absence of direct effects to the evaluation from age, education, organization size, and evacuation dummy variable in the final result of structural equation model. In general working at the large company is with well paid, however organization size has no direct effect. It may be that social status and relational resource are more important to personal life satisfaction, social unfairness, and the evaluation in Japan. We discuss possible causal mechanisms in the results.

Authors

• Yoichi Murase, Rikkyo University

• W. Lawrence Neuman, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater