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The article presents information on the papers presented at a round table at the 1949 Annual Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund held in November 16 to 17, 1949. The publication titled "Modernization Programs in Relation to Human Resources and Population Problems" are grouped under three categories. The first category discusses aims and methods of selected programs of modernization such as Liberian Foundation, Point Four and UN Technical Assistance. The second and third category highlights the problems in the development and utilization of human resources and Japan as a case study in modernization, respectively.

This paper introduces new models for comparing several social mobility tables that provide various one-degree-of-freedom tests for two mobility tables on substantively meaningful structural components. These components include differences between mobility tables in (1) the strength of off-diagonal associations, (2) the strength of diagonal effects, and (3) the extent of structural mobility. Most of the models in this paper use association models and the Sobel-Hout-Duncan model but are specifically formulated to analyze three-way tables that have either nations or periods as the third dimension. American, British, and Japanese mobility tables are compared. Together, they show that equality of occupational opportunity is larger for the United States than for Great Britain, that Japan's mobility structure is closer to quasi-independence than that of the two other nations, and that Japan's mobility structure became more like that of the United States in 1975 rather than in 1955. These analyses also demonstrate that comparative mobility research based on indexing mobility has strong limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information related to sociology as of April 1, 1950. The Committee of the American Sociological Society on Contributed Papers for the 1950 annual meeting consists of Robert E. L. Fans, chairman; and A. B. Hollingshead and T. C. McCormick. Papers submitted for consideration should be sent not later than June 1, 1950. Recently elected officers of the Pacific Sociological Society for 1950 are: President, Leonard Bloom; Vice-president, Southern Division, Ernest Greenwood; Vice-president, Central Division, Carlo Lastrucci; Vice-president, Northern Division, Joseph Bachelder; and Members of the Advisory Council, Robert O'Brien and Paul Wallin. Gwynne Nettler continues as secretary-treasurer. The Society's annual meeting will be held in Seattle, Washington, during April 21-22, 1950. The Twenty- second annual meeting of the Japan Sociological Society was held in Tokyo, Japan, during October 15-16, 1949. The meeting was attended by more than 250 members. Fifty-two reports were given on various aspects of social theory and social research, and three public lectures on the topic, "The Population Problem in Japan."

In Japan, unlike in most other industrialized societies, the decline in marriage rates has been most pronounced among highly educated women. Theoretical interpretations of this distinctive pattern of change have typically emphasized increasing economic independence for women and reductions in the gains to marriage. In this paper, the authors develop and evaluate an alternative explanation that emphasizes women's continued dependence on men's economic resources and decline in the relative supply of highly educated men. Using data from four rounds of the Japanese National Fertility Survey, the authors decompose the observed decline in marriage rates into changes in the propensity to marry and changes in the educational composition of the marriage market. Results indicate that change in the availability of potential spouses accounts for one-fourth of the decline in marriage among university-educated women and explains a substantial proportion of the growing educational differences in marriage. The conclusion is that the relatively large decline in marriage among highly educated Japanese women likely reflects both increasing economic independence and continued economic dependence on men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elite coalition that pushes local industrial growth is composed of six actors: local state, business, and party and national state, business, and party. The question of which dominates the coalition reflects current debates about the structure of power in capitalist society. This paper addresses these debates through the detailed study of a growth coalition in a rural industrialization project in southern Japan. It traces the strategies and modes of influence of the six actors, their structure and process, through the 25-year history of the project. Contrary to the "strong state" image of Japan, national big business dominated the growth coalition. The rest of the society, including the state, adjusted around its motion. This resulted in policies which favored economic growth over social needs, giving some of the other actors legitimation problems. Yet, success at rapid growth prevented these from assuming crisis proportions. The findings run counter to state autonomy arguments and suggest closer attention be paid to multiple levels of structure and process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese women participate in the labor force at rates similar to women in Western industrial nations, but gender stratification patterns are sharper. Women in Japan are less apt to work as employees, a tendency that increases with age. Likewise, female employees tend to shift from larger to smaller firms across the life Cycle, whereas male employees do not. These aggregate pallets imply that Japanese women are seldom placed in career-track positions in large firms early in their careers. Analyses on labor market entry data from the 1984 "Survey on Work Patterns" substantiate this view. Although Japanese men and women enter large firms at equivalent rates upon leaving school, 22 percent of men and only 7 percent of women enter career ladders. The majority of women enter large firms as clerical workers, three-quarters of whom are in low-level "assistant clerical" positions. Causal processes governing entrance to large firms and career tracks are examined in the paper, with particular attention to the relative returns to different levels and types of education for Japanese men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of human organization in industrial groupings is a favorite of contemporary sociology. Most of the studies, however, have confined their attention to modern, highly rationalized plants; few have been concerned with the institutions of a pre-rationalized stage of those transitional between these extremes. This neglect appears to reflect the near disappearance of the latter type of institution from the Western World. Yet in Japan, notwithstanding the rapid development of rationalized industry after the Restoration of 1868, such instances remain here and there even today. In this article the writer presents some observations on the life of iron working communities in Shimane Prefecture, Japan, where certain characteristics of a pre-rationalized industrial organization have remained until quite recently, as of April 1, 1950. The more important of these characteristics may be summarized as follows; the persistence of a traditional method of iron smelting, the origin of which is associated with a myth; and the existence of a special dependency relationship between the workmen and the owner of a smeltery and a hereditary occupational system.

In most societies, there is an ongoing contest over who is the "we," to whom specific moral obligations apply, and who is the "they," to whom they do not. This paper explores and contrasts the most blatant forms of active exclusion, which includes genocide, and indirect exclusion, which is characterized by subtle forms of exclusion through social invisibility. In genocide, the targeted groups are not simply excluded from life integrity rights, but offenses against them are explicitly encouraged, rewarded, and sanctioned by the regime. In indirect exclusion, the exclusion is implicit in cultural and institutional practices and is often unintentional. I examine the difficulties and dilemmas involved in resisting and preventing active exclusion and in challenging the cultural codes that maintain indirect exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human judgment of wrongdoing underlies all social control processes. Substantively, we argue that a universal model of how humans make such judgments must allow for assessing both deeds of the actor being judged and role-related social obligations governing what the actor should have done. Structurally, such a model can incorporate cross-cultural differences in terms of differential weights placed on these factors. The model was tested in sample surveys of Yokohama and Kanazawa, Japan, using responses to experimentally varied hypothetical vignettes. It was predicted that the Japanese would replicate previous findings for American respondents (in Detroit), but would at the same time differ significantly in their weighting of deed-related versus role-related variations in vignettes as determinants of an actor's responsibility. The bulk of results originally obtained in Detroit were in fact replicated in both Yokohama and Kanazawa. Predicted cultural differences were also confirmed in comparisons of each Japanese survey with the prior American one; Japanese placed greater emphasis on an actor's role position and an act's social context, relative to an American emphasis on aspects of an actor's deed per se. Further practical implications of these cultural differences for our legal system are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsukisoi are sub-professional nurses who, in private psychiatric hospitals in Japan, are assigned on a one-to-one basis to patients. The tsukisoi cares for the patient continuously throughout his hospitalization. The work of this role group and its place in the social structure of the hospital are described. Correspondences are drawn between the behavior of the tsukisoi in her technical role and the behavior exhibited in more general roles, such as that of mother, in Japanese culture. The position of the tsukisoi in the power structure of the hospital is seen in relation to the structure of power groupings in organizations such as the Japanese company or factory. Some of the wider sociological and psychodynamic implications of the role of the tsukisoi are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have established the existence of a high positive association between the extent of urbanization, as measured by proportion of total population in administratively defined cities, and industrial development. The concentration of urban population, as reflected in the proportion of urban population in metropolitan areas, fails to show as close a relationship to industrial development. It is hypothesized that metropolitanization is strongly influenced by the structure of the industrialization process, and not only by industrialization as such. As a test of the hypothesis, Japanese industrial organization and employment patterns are analyzed in terms of their influences upon metropolitan structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of comparative family policy research have raised concerns about potential negative outcomes of generous family policies, an issue known as the "welfare state paradox." They suspect that such policies will make employers reluctant to hire or promote women into highauthority jobs, because women are more likely than men to use those policies and take time off. Few studies, however, have directly tested this employer-side mechanism. In this article, we argue that due to employer heterogeneity, as well as different modes of policy intervention such as mandate-based and incentive-based approaches, generous family policies may not always lead to employer discrimination. Adopting a quasi-experimental research design that classifies employers based on their differential receptivity to family policy changes, we compare their hiring and promotion of women before and after two major family policy reforms in Japan, one in 1992 and another in 2005. Our analysis using panel data of large Japanese firms finds little evidence of policy-induced discrimination against women. Instead, we find that employers who voluntarily provided generous leave benefits prior to government mandates or incentives actually hired and promoted more women after the legal changes, and employers who provided generous benefits in response to government incentives also increased opportunities for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent accounts of the transition to capitalism have a far too limited understanding of pre-capitalist agrarian economies’ potential for dynamism. Recent research shows that conditions earlier accounts identify as triggers for a transition to capitalism could be present without a transition occurring. I expand on implications of these cases of “missing transitions” for theorizing the dynamics of pre-capitalist agrarian economies. I present a theoretical framework that shows how phenomena previously associated with the transition to capitalism—such as flexible property rights in land and labor, extensive markets, and accumulation of industrial and mercantile wealth—emerged in pre-capitalist societies without leading to capitalist development. I illustrate the analytic upshot of this framework by considering the case study of Japan in the Tokugawa era (1603 to 1868). For historical sociologists, early modern Japan has long been seen as an anomalous case, puzzlingly mixing developments thought to represent early signs of capitalism with evidence of the durable survival of the feudal social order. In light of a more accurate account of the forces for and limits of dynamism in pre-capitalist agrarian economies, Tokugawa-era Japan is no longer a puzzling anomaly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study uses a sample of Japanese university scientists in life and materials sciences to examine how academic entrepreneurship has affected the norms and behaviors of academic scientists regarding sharing scientific resources. Results indicate that high levels of academic entrepreneurship in a scientific field are associated with less reliance on the gift-giving form of sharing (i.e., generalized exchange) traditionally recommended by scientific communities, and with a greater emphasis on direct benefits for givers (i.e., direct exchange), as well as a lower overall frequency of sharing. We observe these shifts in sharing behavior even among individual scientists who are not themselves entrepreneurially active; this suggests a general shift in scientific norms contingent on institutional contexts. These findings reflect contradictions inherent in current science policies that simultaneously encourage open science as well as commercial application of research results, and they suggest that the increasing emphasis on commercial activity may fundamentally change the normative structure of science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how organizational environments affect labor market processes in Japan. I hypothesize that labor market inequality is generated through workers being "positioned" in either domestic or in foreign firms. I apply the concept of social versus economic exchange to distinguish the nature of transactions between domestic and foreign firms. I argue that foreign firms operate under an institutional context that is conducive to the economic mode of exchange, which has enormous consequences for their personnel practices and reward systems. Using a dataset of Japanese workers collected in 2000, I examine the extent to which employment practices in foreign firms deviate from the benchmark features observed in the Japanese labor market. My results confirm that employment in foreign firms significantly affects career outcomes. The high-commitment culture commonly associated with the Japanese workforce is an outcome of the organizational environment. I find little evidence of Japanese employment practices (e.g., seniority and lifetime employment) operating within foreign firms. I also find that workers in foreign firms trust their employers less and have a higher propensity to quit their jobs. My findings suggest that workers in domestic and foreign firms are subject to vastly different sets of institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the research conducted by Terry L. Besser comparing the commitment to work in the U.S. and Japan. It was argued that U.S. manufacturing employees are more committed than are Japanese workers in terms of work attitudes, even though the Japanese display more committed behaviors. The Japanese advantage in behavioral commitment allegedly stems largely from social pressures rather than individual loyalty to, identification with or involvement in the organization. Besser argues that low rates of absenteeism do not necessarily indicate a highly committed work force. Surely absenteeism in Japanese-managed plants is held low by peer pressures and other factors unrelated to commitment attitudes of individuals. At the same time, many of the normative and team-based controls for which Japanese organizations are famous could not function without a high degree of individual acceptance and compliance. Behavioral commitment in the Japanese workplace has both structural and attitudinal sources. Despite initial appearances from survey data, most evidence does not support the conclusion that U.S. manufacturing workers feel greater personal loyalty to their firms than do Japanese workers or that structural controls wholly explain the Japanese advantage in behavioral commitment.

I review research comparing the commitment to work of American and Japanese workers. Because Japanese workers demonstrate high levels of committed behaviors (e.g., low absenteeism and turnover), this research concludes that Japanese workers are more committed than are American workers. However, this research dismisses the finding that American workers express a commitment to work that is greater than (or at least similar to) Japanese workers. I argue that this incongruity between expressed commitment and committed behaviors has several explanations: Greater duality exists in the Japanese labor market. Differences in cultural contexts make behavioral indicators dubious measures of commitment. Japanese organizations may elicit committed behaviors from their workers without producing personal feelings of commitment. The relationship between attitudes and behavior may be less direct than is often assumed. Continuing to distrust the validity of survey results regarding the commitment of Japanese workers avoids confronting these alternative explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the organization of keiretsu networks in the Japanese economy using data on the top 50 financial firms and 200 industrial corporations. Control relations between pairs of firms are modeled as a function of bilateral exchange relations and other firm- and dyad-level covariates in accordance with resource dependence and transaction cost theory. Firms with financial and commercial connections develop quasi-administrative ties through cross-shareholding and director transfers. Keiretsu networks have two sides: (1) horizontal relationships of mutual support and defense among large, established firms as indicated by reciprocity of control and exchange, homophily among "big-six" affiliates, and symmetry in the effects of purchase/supply transactions on control; (2) vertical structures of asymmetric exchange and control between financial firms and industrial firms, large firms and small firms, and "big-six" firms versus independent companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a 1978 study of wives with pre-school-age children, we show that extended residence fits nicely with certain elements of modern Japanese society, offering tangible benefits for both young couples and their parents. Specifically, the incompatibility of the mother role and wage work is greatly reduced by the child care and housework aid parents provide. Consequently, wives in extended households have more children and are more likely to be employed. Moreover, very few respondents living with parents wish a more separate residence. Extended residence is not an anachronism. Rather, it offers an appealing alternative to some of the most modern segments of contemporary Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presentation concerns the utility of conceptualizing the structural changes associated with modern economic development as functional alternatives. The concept is corn pared to other approaches represented as historicism, convergence, and structural modeling with environmental effects. The advantages of the functional alternative conceptualization are demonstrated through comparison of selected employment characteristics in Japan and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses family structure and industrialization in Japan. Modern Japan displays ail the major characteristics of an urbanized and industrialized nation. Well over one-half of her total population resides in localities administratively defined as urban; two-thirds of her economically active males are employed in nonagricultural pursuits. Indeed, numerous social, economic, and political indices justify placing her at a level of development comparable to that of leading urban-industrialized nations of the West. Yet the social organization supporting Japan's urban-industrialism reveals foci markedly different from those found in the West. Traces of feudal-agrarian modes of organization and motivation are still strong in such areas as employer-employee relations, handicraft production, and law enforcement. From this viewpoint, Japan represents the paradox of a highly industrialized society whose social organization contains viable elements characteristic of the peasant-agrarian social system.

The article presents information on industrialization, urbanization, migration, and economic transition in Japan during 1920-1940. In 1920, nearly 49% of Japan's men were in agriculture, forestry and fishing, and 42% in industry, trade and transportation. Economic transformation resulted in rapid urbanization. In 1920, 8% of the total population was in the six great cities of Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, which increased to 34% in 1940. Regarding economic transition in Japan, there was a direct transition from a subsistence agrarian economy to an industrial urban economy. Also, the Japanese migrated to maintain the agricultural population.

This article presents information on various developments in the field of sociology and science in several countries. The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held in Cleveland, Ohio on December 26-30, 1950. Sessions will be devoted to the principal fields of science, including social science. A group of persons interested in the study of American Civilization has formed a committee to investigate the possibility of establishing a national society. Carl Bode of the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, is serving as secretary of the sponsoring committee. The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, announces a vacancy in the position of Professor of Sociology. Applicant will be expected to carry on his teaching eventually in Hebrew. Remuneration is in accordance with the salary and pension schedule of the Hebrew University. The journal "Japan Planned Parenthood Quarterly," is published by the Japan Birth-Control Institute, the quarterly is edited by Kageyas Wat Amano and Fumiko Yamaguchi Amano, both of whom received medical as well as other training in the United States.

The article throws light on the wartime manpower controls in Japan. It has been states that it is hard to compare the totalitarianism of the U.S. and Japan. The strategic bombing on the home islands had a devastating effect on the productivity and morale of the population which was totally independent of the social control system. Granting all these limitations, an attempt will be made to discover parallels and contrasts in the manpower phase of war mobilization as between the U.S. and Japan. Labor unions were prevented from seriously challenging employer dominance through repressive laws and police action. The authorities realized that they would need a more thorough control over national resources, including manpower. The labor force was still largely engaged in normal peacetime pursuits, the bulk of them in agriculture. It was therefore necessary to set up national sanctions which would serve to channel labor into important war industries and to mobilize portions of the labor force not fully utilized and also to try to get more effort and efficiency out of the existing workers.

During the eight years from 1940 to 1947, inclusive, in spite of the war, the population of Japan as now constituted increased by about 8,000,000. About 6,900,000 was due to an excess of births over deaths and 1,100,00 to net immigration. During the two years 1948 and 1949, the increase amounted to about 4,000,000, most of which came from an excess of births over deaths. By the end of 1949, the total number of persons had almost reached the 83,000,000 mark. When it is remembered that the land area of Japan is somewhat smaller than that of California, that only about one-sixth to one-fifth of this area is sufficiently level for farming, and that mineral deposits are relatively unimportant, it is not surprising that many of the Japanese people, and many non-Japanese as well, are concerned regarding the present ratio of the population to its means of support, and the future trend of this ratio. The official statistics which begin during the 1870's show a gradual increase in the crude birth rate from 25 per 1,000 during 1875-79 to 35 during 1920-24, but there is evidence indicating that fertility declined during this period and that the reported rise of the rate was due to the improvement of the basic statistics.

Japan faces a very difficult problem in her effort to become self-supporting under the conditions resulting from her defeat in World War II. It will be impossible to discuss in any detail here the reasons for this conclusion, but it will be necessary to summarize briefly the facts of the situation if this conclusion is to be accepted as reasonable. Japan now consists of only the four main islands and Ryukyu, an area of somewhat less than 148,000 square miles, the numerous smaller islands still belonging to Japan having little economic importance. Before World War II, Japan held Formosa, Korea, and southern Saghalien as colonies. She also held the Kwantung Leased Territory in southern Manchuria. After 1931, Manchuria belonged for all practical purposes in this category, although it was not legally a colony. Before World War II, Japan Proper imported about one-sixth of her food, much of it from Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria. Clearly, the severance of all economic ties with Formosa, Korea, Saghalien, and Manchuria, and the restriction of her fisheries within relatively narrow limits around Japan Proper were bound to reduce the food supply of the Japanese.

The war has brought new realization of the terrible consequences of international anarchy. The bankruptcy of nationalism as a system of world organization is proclaimed on every side. People are exhorted to adopt internationalism as a way of life, as though by an act of will we might create a master for the monster, rampant nationalism, which has perhaps reached its climax in modem Germany and Japan. The long, slow processes of cultural growth are disregarded, and people turn with high hope to the magic of conversion as a solution to their problems. With techniques of control developed by modem research people perhaps can increase somewhat the tempo of change but cultural growth is much more an organic than a mechanical process. They are likely to find the obstetrician's techniques are more effective than those of the inventor. They can do much to guarantee the health of the society which is giving birth to a new one, relieve somewhat the pain and anxiety which accompanies it, and prevent birth trauma but if they hurry the process too much we may produce abortion or those very traumatic experiences we seek to avoid.

Social thought in the broadest sense has never been lacking in Japan, the researches of Japanese scholars have incontestably shown that not only was the mainland heritage of Confucian and like ideologies zealously perpetuated, but those in addition new departures bearing a strictly indigenous stamp were abundant. This holds true for that earlier period when sociologists were open to culture contacts of all sorts, and for the later era of feudal isolation and xenophobia as well. Unfortunately, however, Japanese treatises in this field have not been translated and Occidental scholars have made almost no researches of their own, so that they are compelled to pass over what is undoubtedly a most interesting body of social lore with this bare reference. It is now a commonplace to say that no nation in recorded history underwent so sudden a transition from agrarian feudalism to highly developed industrialism as did Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Keeping at least equal pace with the march of material culture went a host of new ideas from England, Germany, France, and the U.S. that challenged and in many instances overcame the sway of ancient lore and immemorial usage.

This article presents information on several meetings related to the field of sociology held in the U.S. and Japan. The annual meeting of Eastern Sociological Society was held at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York on April 3-4, 1954. President Ira DeA Reid addressed the group on "The Social Protest: Cue and Catharsis" at the annual dinner. Sections of the meeting included "Methods in Social Research," "Stratification and Occupation," "Social Structure," "Frontiers in Social Theory," and "Studies in Social Problems." The Japan Sociological Society held its 26th annual meeting on October 10-11, 1953, at the Tohoku University of Sendai, in northeastern Japan. Over four hundred sociologists and related scientists were present. Session topics included: Mass Communication and Social Psychology; Fishing Village Problems; Industry and Labor; Education and Crime; Sociological Theory; Rural Society; Population and Urban Society; Family and Marriage; Morals and Religion; and Race and Social Class. The Pacific Coast Sociological Society held its 1954 meeting at the campus of Oregon State College, at Corvallis, Oregon on April 22-23, 1954.