© Shinichi Aizawa
"What Kind of Class Society Is Japan? Rethinking Social Stratification through Capitals and Lifestyles"
Prof. Shinichi Aizawa (Sophia University)
How can we better understand contemporary Japanese society through the re-analysis of existing large-scale survey data? While Japan has often been described as a relatively homogeneous “middle-class society,” such interpretations have typically relied on single indicators such as income or occupation and have only partially engaged with the rich empirical resources available in quantitative surveys.
This paper revisits the question of social class in Japan by drawing on the 2015 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) survey, one of the most comprehensive datasets on Japanese society. Adopting a Bourdieusian perspective, I conceptualize class as a multidimensional configuration of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as associated lifestyle practices. Using latent class analysis, I inductively identify several distinct social classes characterized by different combinations of these resources.
In contrast to findings from the UK, the Japanese case does not exhibit a clearly bounded, affluent elite class. Instead, the results point to a differentiated structure composed of multiple relatively advantaged groups alongside a large segment of the population with more modest or mixed resource profiles. Notably, one group characterized by relatively strong economic resources but more limited cultural participation—often associated with manufacturing-based regional economies—emerges as a distinctive feature of the Japanese case. While groups with lower levels across multiple forms of capital can also be identified, the overall structure appears less polarized than in some Western contexts.
More broadly, the paper demonstrates the analytical potential of secondary data analysis for Japan studies by showing how reinterpreting existing survey data can reveal patterns of stratification that remain less visible in conventional approaches.
Japan and South Korea were long known as “smokers’ paradises” and had high rates of smoking among men but not women. Cigarettes were cheap and few regulations limited where one could smoke. In the past twenty-five years, however, a patchwork of binding and non-binding measures in both Japan and Korea have aimed to change behavioral norms around smoking and create more nonsmoking environments, both indoors and outdoors. They include appeals for people to show good “manners” when smoking, exhortations to smoke only in designated spaces, appeals for businesses to try to reduce secondhand smoke, and also (small) fines for breaking rules. This talk analyzes the range of nonsmoking regulations in Japan and Korea. It then asks what conditions make these nonsmoking rules more or less effective. I find that public support for restricting smoking and public involvement in collective enforcement through civil complaints or shaming are critical for nonsmoking rules’ effectiveness.
Shinichi Aizawa is Professor of Sociology of Education at Sophia University, Tokyo, and currently a visiting researcher at the Institute of Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin (2025–2026). His research examines the mechanisms of social stratification and reproduction in modern and contemporary Japan, with a particular focus on the role of education.
Combining quantitative and historical-comparative approaches, his work explores topics such as educational expansion, social mobility, cultural capital, and inequality. In recent years, he has been particularly interested in reinterpreting social stratification through a combination of secondary data analysis, the reconstruction of historical survey data from the 1950s and 1960s, and original survey research. This approach allows him to examine how social class is structured and experienced in Japanese society across different historical periods and empirical contexts, including analyses based on large-scale datasets such as the Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) surveys.
His publications include the co-edited volume High School for All in East Asia (Routledge, 2019), which comparatively examines the public–private relationships in upper secondary education across East Asian societies, as well as numerous articles on education, inequality, and social change in Japan. He has also contributed to international discussions by introducing Japanese sociology of education to broader audiences and by examining how Bourdieusian concepts have been adapted and reinterpreted in the Japanese context
Der Vortrag findet in Präsenz statt. Ort: Japan-Zentrum der LMU, Seminargebäude am Englischen Garten, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Raum 151.