Empirical research on the effects of private and public supports on well-being

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K17203
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Kyoto University (2016-2019); Ritsumeikan University (2015)
• Principal Investigator: Shibata Haruka 京都大学, 人間・環境学研究科, 准教授 (50631909)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 主観的幸福感 / 保育 / 社会経済地位 / 傾向スコア / 因果推論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We conducted a national-representative mailed questionnaire survey and examined the long-term effects of "childcare" (going to a day-care center) as public support, "family child rearing" (according to previous studies, the quality depends on the socioeconomic status of the parents) as private support, and these interaction effect on post-adult subjective happiness and its factors by means of causal inference using the propensity score for the usage of day-care centers.
As a result, it was found that respondents aged 20-44 from “disadvantaged family” (socioeconomic status: the bottom half) become, in the future, to have a weaker tendency to be a non-regular worker, a stronger tendency to have a spouse, a stronger tendency to have frequent face-to-face interactions, etc., and as a result, a tendency to answer higher subjective happiness if they went to a day-care center (compared to going to a kindergarten only) in their early childhood.

Free Research Field

社会学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

保育所通園の「短期」的効果としては、3歳半までの子どもの発達へのポジティブな効果が指摘されている（Yamaguchi et al. 2018）。また「中期」的効果としては、無通園や幼稚園通園と比べて、高校進学率や大学進学率が高まることが指摘されている（Akabayashi and Tanaka 2013）。本研究に最も近い先行研究は以上の2つであり、それらと比較すると、保育所通園の成人後までの「長期」的効果を対象としている点が本研究の新規性である（学術的意義）。
また主観的幸福感などにつながるポジティブな長期的効果が、特に不利な家庭で見られたことは、保育政策の検討の際に参考になる（社会的意義）。