Public attitudes to the death penalty in Japan


Sample bias


All nine past government surveys listed have been consistent in their sampling method. Tey are all nationwide surveys, using two-stage stratified random sampling (Cabinet Office, 1956, 1967, 1975, 1980, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, & 2009). Each sample is comprised of Japanese men and women aged 20 and over. In addition, either Chuo Chosasha or Shin Joho Center has been contracted for all past sweeps.


Sampling method alone, however, does not guarantee that the resulting sample is representative of the population, if the response rate is not sufficiently high (Yamauchi, 2004; Yasuda & Inaba, 2008). Analyses conducted on a biased sample will not produce results which are reliable. Terefore, while the government surveys’ sampling method is sound, response rates also need to be examined to ensure that the resulting sample is representative of the Japanese public.


Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the changes in response rates for the past nine sweeps.


Figure 1 shows the overall shift in response rates and shifts according to the gender of the respondents. It shows that the response rate – which reached 85% in 1956 – has been going down, falling to 65% in the 2009 government survey. Both male and female response rates show a downward trend, but at any particular time, men are less likely to respond than women, with response rates that are over 10 percentage points lower.


Figure 1: Response rate by gender Response rate (%)


100 90 80 70 60 50


Total Male Female


1956 1967 1975 1980 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 85


83 80 87


80 74 86


81 75 87


76 70 82


70 64 77


72 66 78


68 64 72


65 60 70


Note: Data for male and female not available for 1956 government survey 35


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