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Brett Young by4935a@american American University School of International Service

A Generation Gap? Age and Attitudes towards Constitutional Revision in Japan. Brett Young by4935a@american.edu American University School of International Service M.A. Candidate, 2012.

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Brett Young by4935a@american American University School of International Service

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  1. A Generation Gap? Age and Attitudes towards Constitutional Revision in Japan Brett Young by4935a@american.edu American University School of International Service M.A. Candidate, 2012

  2. Research Question– do young Japanese have significantly different opinions that their elders regarding Article 9 of the Constitution and whether or not it should be revised? • Null hypothesis: age does not affect whether or not a Japanese citizen is in favor of revising Article 9 of the Constitution. • Research hypothesis: age does affect whether or not a citizen is in favor of revision. ARTICLE 9….the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained...

  3. Existing Studies and Literature • Opinion polls: Asahi Shinbun: 27% were in favor of, and 67% were opposed to, revision of Article 9 (2010). Yomiuri Shinbun reported that 31% of individuals interested in Constitutional revision were in favor because of Article 9. • “Aging and Political Participation in Japan.” (Yasuo Takao, 2009). Japan is aging faster in urban than rural areas. Elderly Japanese are not necessarily conservative.

  4. Data source: Japan General Social Survey(JGSS) 2006 unit= individual n= 4,254 • Dependent variable: opinion on revision of article 9. • Independent variable: age* • Control Variables: marital status* level of education* trust in Self-Defense Forces household income* size of municipality socioeconomic position position politically degree of faith in religion (an asterisk indicates that the variable was recoded.)

  5. Descriptive Statistics

  6. Descriptive Statistics • 52.3% of data is missing. (n = 2,225). • As a result, out of all those surveyed, 16.5% state yes, 31.2% state no.

  7. Bivariate Analysis • The variables which have an impact are gender, household income, political position, and trust in SDF. * = significant at .001 ** = significant at .05 As age is not significant, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

  8. T-test to compare means • Means are 52.52 (in favor of revision) and 51.76 (against revision.) However this is not statistically significant at 0.092.

  9. Marginal Effects after Probit • The 4th model is the best and has a 5% prediction rate.

  10. Conclusions • Ultimately, the null hypothesis that age is not a significant factor when examining attitudes towards Constitutional revision must be upheld. POLICY IMPLICATIONS • More research necessary; push for trade and engagement; bolster trust in SDF.

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