As a comprehensive researchers’ network, our project was established in 2011. The project title, SSP represents a network of collaborating researchers in Stratification and Social Psychology.

From 1970 through the 1980s, interest in social stratification in Japan was drawn to the “Mass Middle Class.” However, thereafter, with the arrival of the “bubble economy,” the exploration of the relationship between actual social status and class identification was deemed a thing of the past. In the three decades of Heisei, the structural tendency of Japanese society has shifted from “generally middle class” to “generally unequal.” Understanding the relationships that enabled this change is a meaningful sociological task. We aim to set up a new framework of Japanese stratification studies.

One of our main purposes is to anticipate the coming trends of Japanese society, using social survey data and psychological experiments. To do this, we have carried out five nationwide surveys since 2010.
As the completion of these preliminary works, we pursued the 1st SSP Survey in 2015 (SSP2015). It was designed to maintain the time series comparability with the SSM1995 Survey.
Our data provide Japanese society with the fundamental facts relevant to examine politics, industrial structures, and culture.