The Second National Family Research (NFRJ03) was conducted under a subcommittee of  The National Family Research committee of the Japan Society of Family Sociology : Dai 2 Kai Zenkoku Kazoku Tyousa Zikkou Iinkai [NFRJ03 Committee]. This committee was the center for the implementation of NFRJ03, as the name suggests. Through the combined efforts of the committee members, and by sharing the burden among members, they shouldered the responsibilities of implementing this project, including planning survey design, creating the questionnaires, and negotiating with the subcontractor. NFRJ03 was funded by KAKENHI #13301012: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, fiscal 2000 to 2003, Basic Research (A) (1) “Modern Japanese Family Trends Research” representated by Watanabe Hideki, Professor at Keio University. Sampling was completed in 2003 and the survey was completed in February 2004.

The first interim report was published in April 2005. Through joint use by the Japan Society of Family Sociology members, the second interim report (2 volumes) was published in April 2006. The dataset was made public through SSJDA (Social Science Japan Data Archive by the University of Tokyo, Institute of Social Science) as Survey Number 0517.. Since the survey planning stage in February 2002, we formed NFRJ98 Kentou Kenkyuukai [NFRJ98 Working Group] to review outcomes and problems from NFRJ98 research results. This resulted in the NFRJ03 survey implementation and task assignment plan (as of 2002-09-23, in Japanese).

2001

December: examine proposed schedule, organize NFRJ98 Working Group

2002

February: Convene the NFRJ98 Working Group (convened monthly)

May: Examine the status of NFRJ03

August: Report the results of the NFRJ98 Working Group

October: Examine the NFRJ03 Implementation Plan

December: Examine framework for survey form

2003

February: Examine the preliminary survey plan

April: Select a subcontractor for this survey

May: Examine the sampling method

June: Finalize the preliminary survey form, implement preliminary survey

August: Determine the sampling method, examine the main survey form

September: Report the review results of the NFRJ98 data at the Thirteenth Japan Society of Family Sociology Conference

October: Finalize the main survey form

November: Perform sampling

December: Create the main survey form

2004

January to February: Implement the survey

February to October: Data cleaning

September: Deliver NFRJ03 progress report at the Fourteenth Japan Society of Family Sociology

November: Create First Report

2005

April: Publish First Report

April: Start joint society use and establish study group

August 6: Convene study group

2006

January 6, 7: Convene study group (Keio University)

April: Publish Second Report

Around July: Release individual survey results through SSJ data archive at the University of Tokyo Institute of Social Science