TY - JOUR
T1 - Depression in the United States and Japan
T2 - Gender, marital status, and SES patterns
AU - Inaba, Akihide
AU - Thoits, Peggy A.
AU - Ueno, Koji
AU - Gove, Walter R.
AU - Evenson, Ranae J.
AU - Sloan, Melissa
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the use of the National Family Research of Japan ‘98 (NFRJ98) survey conducted by the National Family Research Committee of the Japan Society of Family Sociology. The National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) data were collected by the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, and the study was funded by the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Grant No. HD21009.
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - A number of investigators have claimed that higher depression scores and higher rates of depressive disorder are found worldwide in women, unmarried persons, and people of low socioeconomic status (SES). A closer look, however, indicates that patterns for Asian countries are less consistent than claimed. As a case in point, using comparable data from the National Family Research of Japan '98 survey (N=6985) and the National Survey of Families and Households in the US (N=8111), we examine the distributions of depressive symptoms by gender, marital status, and SES, with a short form of the CES-D Scale. Bivariate and multivariate analyses show that depressive symptoms are higher in women, unmarried persons, and those with lower family incomes in both countries, but there is no association between education and depression in Japan while symptoms are inversely related to education in the US. We argue that the lack of relationship between education and depression in Japan is not an artifact of measurement but a product of Japan's distinctive stratification processes relating to occupation. Cross-national variations around "general" patterns are important because they offer clues to more specific cultural and structural factors involved in the social etiology of mental disorder.
AB - A number of investigators have claimed that higher depression scores and higher rates of depressive disorder are found worldwide in women, unmarried persons, and people of low socioeconomic status (SES). A closer look, however, indicates that patterns for Asian countries are less consistent than claimed. As a case in point, using comparable data from the National Family Research of Japan '98 survey (N=6985) and the National Survey of Families and Households in the US (N=8111), we examine the distributions of depressive symptoms by gender, marital status, and SES, with a short form of the CES-D Scale. Bivariate and multivariate analyses show that depressive symptoms are higher in women, unmarried persons, and those with lower family incomes in both countries, but there is no association between education and depression in Japan while symptoms are inversely related to education in the US. We argue that the lack of relationship between education and depression in Japan is not an artifact of measurement but a product of Japan's distinctive stratification processes relating to occupation. Cross-national variations around "general" patterns are important because they offer clues to more specific cultural and structural factors involved in the social etiology of mental disorder.
KW - CES-D
KW - Cross-cultural differences
KW - Depression
KW - Japan
KW - USA
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.07.014
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.07.014
M3 - Article
C2 - 16115712
AN - SCOPUS:26844465989
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 61
SP - 2280
EP - 2292
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
IS - 11
ER -
