Division of Household Labor and Marital Satisfaction in China, Japan, and Korea

In this study, we compared the association of marital satisfaction with the division of household labor in China, Japan, and Korea. Results revealed that wives’ marital satisfaction was negatively associated with their burden of housework in the three Asian countries, as generally observed in Western countries. However, there were noticeable cross-country differences. Chinese couples were relatively in favor of an egalitarian division of household labor. Japanese couples were supportive of traditional specialization, with wives flexibly shifting their efforts between work outside the house and housework. Korean couples were under pressure from conflicts between the wife’s labor force participation and the traditional division of labor. These findings underscored the importance of the socio-institutional context in the study of marital satisfaction.     

Maternal employment and food produced at home: evidence from Japanese data

This paper examines whether mothers’ labor supply discourages home production, focusing on food preparation at home in Japanese families. Although empirical studies on home production are usually conducted using time use data, we use data collected by scanners, which cover daily goods purchased by over 10,000 households over 3 years. Based on the composition of daily food expenditures for foods consumed, we measure how many products are made using time-consuming processes at home, and examine if time-consuming home production is discouraged by mothers’ employment away from home. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity among households using the panel structure of our scanner data, we first show that mothers’ out-of-home employment has a negative effect on home cooking. This effect is shared across economic classes, particularly when mothers work part-time, as compared with non-working mothers. Second, we show that this negative effect is more apparent in the low economic class. Households in this class show a particular decrease in time-consuming home cooking, especially when the mothers work part-time. Third, the smaller negative effect among the higher class can be explained by stronger health-consciousness and aversion to less-healthy products in this class.     

Do You Prefer Having Much More or Slightly More than Others?

Several studies found that people have a positive utility when they have more than others do. These papers claim that individuals are willing to sacrifice part of their absolute income or products in order to have more than others. As far as we know, the current paper is the first to show that positionality is bounded, so that individuals enjoy having more than others only when the gap between them and the others is not too large. Using the results from a survey-based experiment conducted in Israel that included 924 participants, we show that when individuals were asked to forgive some of their income in order to have a higher income compared to others, most of them chose to forgive their absolute income in order to have more than others. However, when individuals were asked to forgive the same amount of income in order to a have a much higher income compared to others, the attractiveness of having more than others significantly decreased. These results may indicate that individuals suffer from a disutility when extreme gaps exist in society, even if they are the ones with the high income.     

Towards a New Paradigm of Religious Organizations

Abstract  In contemporary Japan, religion is an important issue. Various types of religions such as new religions, occultism, the new age movement, traditional religions etc., attract supporters and exerts a favorable influence on certain aspects of their lives. But, such circumstances are not restricted to Japan. All over the world today, religions have the power to sway national policy and are indispensable in influencing human consciousness and behavior.
Religion is alive and influential even in the secularized world. As such, a cross-cultural study of religions is increasingly needed. Furthermore, the typology of religious organizations provides a means with which to make a comparative study of religion throughout the world.
However, we cannot help but conclude that the theoretical framework developed so far cannot sufficiently deal with the subject in question. This is primarily due to its strong bias towards Christianity, which renders it invalid for analyzing religions in non-Christian regions. This paper will focus on the "cult". The term cult, unlike church-sect-denomination, seems to be applicable to any religious tradition and culture. It is not confined to a specific one such as the Christian tradition and culture.
It should be noted that the cult as previously treated is problematic, too, because it is not free from a bias towards Christianity, and has too negative a connotation for a scientific concept. In this paper, utilizing the merits of the concept of cult, I would like to elaborate a new paradigm of religious organizations. This should allow for a cross-cultural comparison between religious phenomena.     

Relative Income and Happiness in Asia: Evidence from Nationwide Surveys in China, Japan, and Korea

This study attempts to examine relative income effects on perceived happiness in three major Asian countries—China, Japan, and Korea—in comparison with the United Sates, on the basis of largely comparable nationwide surveys in these countries. Consistent with the results from previous studies in Western countries, comparisons with an individual’s own income and average income of the reference group are significantly associated with the individual’s perceived happiness in Asia. The associations between relative income and happiness are stronger for individual income than family income in China, while the opposite is true in Japan and Korea. Even after controlling for the subjective assessment of family income or personal class identification within the society as a whole, income comparisons within the reference group matter for assessing happiness, especially when using family income for comparisons. Moreover, relative deprivation within the reference group, which is measured by the Yitzhaki index, is negatively related to happiness, providing more evidence for the validity of the relative income hypothesis.     

Secondary Traumatization Among Adult Children of PTSD Veterans: The Role of Mother–Child Relationships

The study examined the level of secondary traumatization among adult children of Israeli war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as manifested in emotional distress, stress resulting from terrorist attacks, and capacity for intimacy. In addition, the role of the mother–child relationship as a moderator of these manifestations of distress was examined. Forty-six adult children of fathers with chronic PTSD, and 46 adult children of fathers who had participated in a war but did not have PTSD participated. Findings revealed that adult children of PTSD veterans showed higher levels of psychological distress, greater terror-related stress, and a lower capacity for intimacy than children of non-PTSD veterans. Positive relationship with the mother was found to moderate the level of participants' capacity for intimacy and their levels of psychiatric symptoms.     

Child Poverty as a Determinant of Life Outcomes: Evidence from Nationwide Surveys in Japan

We attempt to examine the extent to which poverty in childhood adversely affects success in adulthood, using micro data from nationwide surveys in Japan and taking into account the recursive structure of life outcomes. We use retrospective assessments of income class at the age of 15, because longitudinal data on household income are not available. After controlling for its endogeneity, we confirm that children from poor families tend to have lower educational attainment, face higher poverty risks, and assess themselves as being less happy and as suffering from poorer health.     

Toward general impossibility theorems in pure exchange economies

We study the possibility of strategy-proof and efficient mechanisms in pure exchange economies. In his remarkable paper, Zhou (1991) establishes an elegant impossibility result: there is no strategy-proof, efficient, and non-dictatorial mechanism in the two-agent case. He conjectures that there is no strategy-proof, efficient, and “non-inversely-dictatorial” mechanism in the case of three or more agents. However, we discover some counterexamples to his conjecture in the case of four or more agents. We present a new interesting open question: Is there any strategy-proof, efficient, and “non-alternately-dictatorial” mechanism? Received: 17 October 2000/Accepted: 20 April 2001     

A women's support group for Asian international students

International students underuse counseling services, which are grounded in Western cultural values. The authors describe a support group for Asian international students that they launched at a large midwestern university to help students feel at ease with American university life, address homesickness, language problems, and academic and social stressors. Co-leaders created a safe and culturally sensitive atmosphere where the women could network, socialize, and address their issues. Group treatment offers many advantages over individual counseling and can enhance the health of international students.     

Two fish species competition model with nonlinear interactions and equilibrium catches

Summary Two species competition model is built up by assuming the hypothetical second order interactions in order to consider effects of exploitation on two competing fish species with non-linear interactions. Most important characteristic of this model, compared withLotka-Volterra type linear competition model, is that this model can possess multiple stable equilibrium points. Therefore there is a possibility that two species keeping the equilibrium state at one stable equilibrium point will be attracted to the other stable equilibrium point after a heavy perturbation. In this model reversible change of the fishing pressure does not always results in that of the equilibrium catch. In this sence MSY concept for single species can not be extended to this model. If there are multiple stable equilibrium points, the change of the dominant fish species, catastrophic and irreversible change of each equilibrium catch may be observed when the perturbation by the exploitation is added. This phenomenon immediately reminds us of the change of the dominant fish species between Japanese common mackerel and Pacific saury in the northwest Pacific Ocean. In case of the management of two competing fish species with nonlinear interactions, the consideration on the balance between the fishing pressure for each species may be as important as the decision on the catch limit for each species. MSY level for each species based on the single-species theory could be quite erroneous.