Introduction to Japanese Household Surveys

72 Pages·2018·1.506 MB·English

by  Takashi Unayama (auth.)

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN ECONOMICS
DEVELOPMENT BANK OF JAPAN RESEARCH SERIES
Takashi Unayama
Introduction
to Japanese
Household
Surveys
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Takashi Unayama
Introduction to Japanese
Household Surveys
123
Takashi Unayama
Institute of Economic Research
Hitotsubashi University
Kunitachi, Tokyo
Japan
and
Research Institute of Capital Formation
Development Bankof Japan
Tokyo
Japan
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Contents
1 System of Japanese Household Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Household Behaviors and Household Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Households in the Macroeconomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Fundamental Statistics in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Sampling Strategy of Household Surveys in Japan . . . . . . 5
1.3 System of Household Surveys in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Issues in the Japanese Household Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4.1 Household Versus Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4.2 Panel Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5 Glossary of Household Surveys in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.1 Population Census . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.2 Family Income and Expenditure Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5.3 National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure . . . . . 16
1.5.4 Survey of Household Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.5.5 Labour Force Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.6 Employment Status Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.5.7 Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.5.8 Housing and Land Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.5.9 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2 How Reliable Are Japanese Household Surveys? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2 Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1 Differences in Household Characteristics
Across Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.2 Sampling Methods and Sample Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.2.3 Summary and Advice for Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
v
vi Contents
2.3 Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.1 Income Variables in Each Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.2 Comparison with Employer Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3.3 Annual Income and Income Reported in the Free-Entry
Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.4 Summary and Advice for the Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4 Tax and Social Security Premium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4.1 Tax and Social Security Premium in Each Survey . . . . . . . 47
2.4.2 Under-Reporting of Income, Tax, and Social Security
Premium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.4.3 Imputing Tax and Social Security Premium. . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.4.4 Summary and Advice for the Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5 Consumption Expenditure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5.1 Consumption Expenditure in Each Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.5.2 Comparison of Consumption Expenditure in Each
Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.5.3 Survey Methods and High Priced Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.5.4 Sample Selection Bias and Consumption Expenditure . . . . 59
2.5.5 Summary and Advice for the Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
About the Author
Takashi Unayama is Associate Professor at Hitotsubashi University and visiting
scholaroftheResearchInstituteofCapitalFormation,DevelopmentBankofJapan.
Born in 1974, he received a bachelors degree in economics from University of
Tokyo in 1997 and a Ph.D. in economics from University of Tokyo in 2004. He
worked for Keio University, Kyoto University, Kobe University, and Ministry of
Finance before joining Hitotsubashi University.
vii
Chapter 1
System of Japanese Household Surveys
Abstract ThischaptergivesacomprehensiveintroductiontoJapanesehousehold
surveys.Householdsurveysplayanimportantrolenotonlyforacademicresearch,
butalsoforpolicymaking.Macrodata,orNationalAccounts,arenotsufficientto
fullyunderstandthestateoftheeconomybecausetheytelluslittleaboutheterogene-
ity among economic agents, which is critical information for policy makers in an
agingsocietylikeJapan.GiventheimportanceofJapan’smyriadhouseholdsurveys
in documenting heterogeneity in the behavior of Japanese households, systematic
knowledge is needed to appropriately employ this micro-data. This chapter brings
anoutlineofthesystemofJapan’sninehouseholdsurveys.Theircoverage,sampling
design,andavailableinformationareexplored.
· ·
Keywords Householdsurveys Japaneseeconomy Samplesurvey
1.1 Introduction
Inrecentyears,therehasbeenanincreasingrelianceonhouseholdsurveysinboth
academicandpolicymakingcontexts.Thereareseveralreasonswhysurveydataon
thehouseholdsectorhavebeguntoplayamoreimportantrole.Forone,household
consumptionexpenditure,whichcomprisesalmost60%ofgrossdomesticproduct
(GDP), is a key determinant of business cycles. In addition, in a country such as
Japan,wheretheeffectsofanagingpopulationareevident,analysesofhousehold
decision-making are necessary to address the problems related to low fertility, a
decreasingpopulation,andashortageoflaborsupply.
Toidentifytheunderlyingmechanismsofhouseholddecision-making,itisneces-
sarytoconstructagent-basedmicrodatabyconductinghouseholdsurveys.Although
macrodata,orNationalAccounts,provideimportantandconsistentaggregatedinfor-
mationonthehouseholdsector,heterogeneityamonghouseholdsisnotobservable.
Accordingly, household surveys are now indispensable in the fields of economics,
sociology,anddemography,amongothers.
Asaresult,theJapanesegovernmentsystematicallyconductsnumeroussurveys,
fromwhichcomprehensive knowledge abouthouseholdbehavior canbeobtained.
©DevelopmentBankofJapan2018 1
T.Unayama,IntroductiontoJapaneseHouseholdSurveys,
DevelopmentBankofJapanResearchSeries,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7680-0_1
2 1 SystemofJapaneseHouseholdSurveys
Nevertheless,itissometimesdifficulttouseJapanesehouseholdsurveys,especially
for foreign researchers. Capturing the complicated nature of household activities
requiresmanyquestions.However,becausenosurveycanaskhouseholdseverything,
theJapanesegovernmentconductsnumeroussurveys,whichjointlycaptureamore
completepictureofhouseholdbehavior.Notsurprisingly,thissystemofsurveysis
complicatedand,therefore,amorecompleteunderstandingofthesystemisneeded
tohelpresearcherschooseappropriatesurveys.
To address this difficulty, I outline the system of surveys, categorize them, and
provide details on each. First, I categorize household surveys in Japan based on
two dimensions: survey content and sampling strategy. This categorization helps
us to understand the relationship between the myriad household surveys. Second,
I discuss numerous issues to understand what is, and what is not covered by the
systemofJapanesehouseholdsurveys.Finally,Iprovideanoverviewofeachsurvey,
includingitspurpose,history,samplingmethod,andquestionnaires.
With regard to the categorization of surveys, survey content (i.e., the available
variables) is at the center of the discussion. In an economy, a household acts as
a capitalist, laborer, and consumer. In addition, non-economic aspects of human
behavior are as crucial. While these four aspects of household behavior overlap
somewhatandarecloselylinked,theyareusuallycoveredinseparatesurveys.Thus,
understandingwhichsurveycoverswhataspectsofhouseholdbehaviorisnaturally
thefirststeptounderstandingthesystemofJapanesehouseholdsurveys.
That said, it is also helpful to categorize household surveys according to their
samplingstrategy.Owingtothecostsofdatacollectionandprocessing,samplesizes
and survey frequencies are limited. Accordingly, in Japan, household surveys are
categorizedintotwotypes:time-series,whicharemorefrequent(typically,monthly),
butwithasmallersamplesize;andcross-sectional,whicharelessfrequent(typically,
quincentennial),butwithalargersamplesize.Thisdistinctioncanexplainwhysome
surveyshavequitesimilarcontent.
Therestofthischapterisorganizedasfollows.InSect.1.2,Iprovideanoverview
ofhouseholdbehaviorfromaneconomicsperspectiveaswellaslegalbackground
andsamplingstrategies.InSect.1.3,IexplorethecategorizationofJapanesehouse-
hold surveys and the relationships among them. In Sect.1.4, I discuss the issues
surrounding and limitations of Japanese household surveys. Section1.5 provides a
catalogue of Japanese household surveys, including detailed information on each
survey.Section1.6concludesthechapter.
1.2 HouseholdBehaviorsandHouseholdSurveys
1.2.1 HouseholdsintheMacroeconomy
Ahouseholdisdefinedasanentitythatconsistsofoneormoreindividuals.Theprin-
cipalfunctionsofahouseholdasaneconomicagentarethefollowing:tosupplylabor
intheformofhoursofwork;toundertakefinalconsumptionasaconsumer;andto