ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses less on objective indications of inequality, and more on the subjective effect of their appearance, namely, how Japan's new self-view as a gap society has affected people's subjective status identification. It examines the changes in the complex relationship between objective and subjective social status over the past two decades. The chapter analyzes the roots of the drastic change in Japanese society's self-view by utilizing survey data for 1995 and 2015. This research which was conducted throughout the 1970s and the 1980s describes the changing objective status of Japanese people throughout the period of high-speed economic growth, using multiple status indicators. This research was further developed by Tominaga and Tomoeda who analysed the changes in consistency and inconsistency of social status from 1955 to 1975.
