University of Tokyo

Abstract
Survey Number 0680
Survey Title Questionnaire on Work-Life Balance, 2008
Depositor JTUC Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards
(Former Name:Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards)
Restriction of Use For detailed information, please refer to 'For Data Users' at SSJDA website.

- Apply to SSJDA. SSJDA's approval required.
Educational Purpose Available for both research and instructional purposes.
Period of Data Use Permission One year
Access to Datasets Download
Nesstar Not available
Summary At Rengo Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards (RENGO-RIALS), the “Work-Life Balance Research Committee” (Chief Examiner: Machiko Ozawa, Japan Women’s University) was established in January 2007. This research committee considers the purpose of work-life balance (WLB) to be the enhancement of both work and life and to that end has pursued various studies based on changes in the contemporary labor market, aiming to identify what should be done in the workplace.

Thus, to provide research/proposals rooted in labor and management settings, interviews with corporations/workplaces were conducted regarding the actual state of workplaces and workers’ attitudes, and data from the “Questionnaire Survey on Work and Life of Workers” administered twice annually by RENGO-RIALS since 2001 were re-analyzed. Additionally, the research committee administered the “Work questionnaire” compiled here as its own survey.

This study views that the scope of achieving work-life balance does not stop at childcare and long-term care but reached across a broad range of topics, including community activities, self-development, and hobbies. In addition, the possible role of labor unions in achieving work-life balance is examined.

The purpose of the “Work questionnaire” is to use a questionnaire survey of workers (regular employees) to understand workers’ attitudes to work-life balance and provide basic materials for reforming work styles/working conditions.

Work-life balance is an issue affecting all workers. Regular employees, in particular, have long working hours and often seem to face this issue. Therefore, this study is focused on regular employees as survey subjects.

The main survey items are degree of acceptance of work-life balance, conditions in which it is difficult to achieve work-life balance, daily time allocations, intention to increase or decrease working hours, self-development, degree of satisfaction with work-life balance, current state of/desired career, etc.
Data Type quantitative research
quantitative research: micro data
Universe Regular employees in their 20s to 50s working in private corporations
Unit of Observation Individual
Sample Size 2,230 people
Date of Collection 2008-08-01 ~ 2008-08-01
2008/08/01
Time Period 2008 ~ 2008
Spatial Unit
Sampling Procedure Non-probability: Quota
Created sampling criteria reflecting distribution of regular employees in their 20s to 50s in the "Heisei 14 (2002) Basic Survey on Employment Structure" per gender, age range, and size by number of employees and then extracted 2,230 people from a Macromill access panel based on this criteria.

*Secured a sampling of people who responded in 13 minutes or longer (2,230 people). People who responded in 13 minutes or less were excluded from sampling out of serious concern that they could not provide accurate responses.
Mode of Data Collection Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)
Internet survey
Investigator Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards, survey carried out by Macromill, Inc.
DOI 10.34500/SSJDA.0680
Sponsors (Funds)
Related Publications (by the Investigator) Please refer to the abstract in Japanese.
Related Publications (based on Secondary Analysis) List of related publications (based on Secondary Analysis)
Documentation [Questionnaire]
Major Survey Items - Marital status, whether spouse is working, spouse’s employment status, highest level of educational attainment, city size of place of residence, presence of children, number of children, youngest child’s age, presence of someone requiring long-term care, cohabiting with parents/living proximity, workplace industry, occupation type, workplace size by number of employees, presence of labor union, labor union membership, years of employment at current workplace, actual working hours per week, mode of work, annual wage income, annual household income

- Form of business at workplace, number of employees at workplace, percentage of regular employees at workplace, amount of workload per personnel, whether performance-based personnel systems has been introduced, rank at work, presence of job-changing experience/number of times, time first changed job

- Interest in life, degree of satisfaction with home life, thoughts on learning outside of workplace, fielding requests from subordinates with superior/inferior performance (leave systems, short-time working system, etc.)

- Experience of difficulties balancing work and life, things that respondent finds difficult/the most difficult thing experienced, method of resolving the difficulties, whether or not the difficulties have been resolved

- Typical daily time allocation (on work days/on non-work days), desire to increase or decrease daily time use (work/self-development/activities for social contribution/hobbies and rest/family time), reasons for unscheduled labor, time spent working and results, ease of achieving work-life balance through management systems, obstacles to taking leave/days off, whether respondent goes home on time from work, conditions for making leaving work on time possible

- Whether respondent was involved in work-related self-development in the past one year/details thereof/method/usefulness, problems with self-development, intention for future self-development

- Degree of job and workplace stress, degree of stress compared to one year ago, number of days per week that fatigue and worries carry over to the following day, degree of satisfaction with work-life balance (time allocation)

- Speed of promotion and advancement, desired promotion in current company, details of work performed, generalist or specialist, whether or not there are workplace personnel transfers, significance of personnel transfers in intended career building, whether or not respondent has acquired skills superior to others in his or her work career so far/time respondent acquired it, degree of usefulness of acquired work skills at another company, time when respondent acquired work skills that he or she can use at another company

- Desired future career building, desired way of spending professional life, desired age for achieving personal life goals after professional goals, desired age for income-earning job, long-term career goals, plans for achieving long-term goals, significance of achieving long-term goals of assigned work

- Feelings toward work and company, whether leaving career path to company, non-workplace job-related network, job and workplace conditions (24 items), relationship with superiors and subordinates (12 items), thoughts on corporate work-life balance measures


- Access panel registration information is used for other, gender and age.
Date of Release 2010/04/08
Topics in CESSDA Click here for details

Working conditions
Family life and marriage
Topics in SSJDA Employment/Labor
Society/Culture
Version 1 : 2010-04-08
Notes for Users Variable and value labels are written in Japanese.