There were some serious health consequences for marginalized group, such as unemployed, uneducated, or poor individuals ( Stuckler et al., 2009) during the time. During this period, worldwide economic stagnation occurred in East Asian countries in early 1990s, and in European countries during the late 2000s. However, during the same period, many developed countries have also been caught up in waves of recession, leading to disparity in the population. The change stimulated national development in many countries, fulfilling our needs of the modern life style ( Inglehart and Baker, 2000).
Across the nine indicators, average ecological correlation with time ( Hamamura, 2012) was r = 0.94 ( p < 0.05), suggesting that these variables are changing worldwide with time. Figure 1 shows a world summary of the changes, summarized from the database of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: ), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe ( ), and World Bank ( ), from 1990 to 2010 2 ( OECD, 2014 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2014 World Bank, 2014). Conceptually, we regard these changes as indicating the change toward increased Gesellshaft socio-demographic condition. Starting from economically developed countries, urban population, internet users, one person households, divorce, and national affluence are increasing throughout the world. The world shift toward Gesellshaft ( Tönnies, 1988) or socio-demographic condition common in individualistic societies ( Greenfield, 2013) is one of the largest contextual changes surrounding recent human ecology. In this study, we take the perspective that Japanese culture, especially its socio-demographic context is becoming more non-traditional ( Hamamura, 2012), and the change in context from 1990 to 2010-the two decades of extremely low rate of new employment opportunities, spread of new liberalism, and market globalization ( Zielenziger, 2006)-would negatively explain the health of Japanese adults. In this study, we focus on the typical case of socio-demographic change which took place in Japan.Īfter the economic crisis known as the collapse of the bubble economy, 1 Japan has witnessed increasing societal problems, and this has led to investigations on the relationship between culture change and health ( Norasakkunkit et al., 2012). We believe such process is apparent across national boarders. We argue that change in the socio-demographic conditions would undermine individuals' psychological health, because whereas human well-being is a function of habituated behavioral tendencies fitted best to accustomed context, change will bring alterations to the requirements of the external environment. Studies of culture change have paid attention to the change in the level of national values ( Hofstede, 2001 Allen et al., 2007 Bilsky et al., 2011 Hamamura, 2012 Twenge et al., 2012), but few studies have been conducted on the relationship between the change and health of residents ( Oishi et al., 2011). Implications for health studies in changing socio-demographic condition are discussed in the context of Japanese society after economic crisis. Additionally, interdependent happiness, the type of cultural happiness grounded in interdependence of the self ( Hitokoto and Uchida, 2014), showed an independent positive relationship with all aspects of health examined. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed small but unique negative effects of the change on several health measures, suggesting that this change had an impact on health, above and beyond individual personality traits, and demographics. In Study 2, we tested whether Japanese adults' general health, satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and perceived social support were negatively predicted by the change using social survey. Building on previous findings, in Study 1, we measured socio-demographic change toward individualistic societal condition during 1990–2010-two decades marked by great economic recession-at the levels of prefecture and city using archival data. Recent investigations in Japan have suggested negative impacts of change on emotional and motivational aspects of the Japanese self ( Norasakkunkit et al., 2012 Ogihara and Uchida, 2014). Today, countries around the world are caught in the tide of change toward Gesellshaft, or individualistic socio-demographic condition. Department of Psychological Sciences, Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya city, Hyogo, Japan.Hidefumi Hitokoto * and Junko Tanaka-Matsumi
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