Since the 1990s, tolerance towards homosexuality has been increasing almost all around the world. In this paper, we explore the association between tolerance towards homosexuality and socioeconomic characteristics or values. To this end, we estimate gamma distribution regression models on tolerance using the World Values Surveys in Japan. As previous studies suggested, women have higher tolerance towards homosexuality than men do. We also found that tolerance increased among young women in the early 1990s, then it increased for young men in the late 1990s, and the early 2000s saw an increase for middle-aged women. The regression models are estimated by gender and, as expected, female respondents living in urban areas and university-educated men and women have higher tolerance than their counterparts. Interestingly, after controlling for covariates, men employed in managerial positions showed lower tolerance. We assume that tolerance variations across socioeconomic characteristics are accounted for by a few dimensions of values. Gender attitude, acceptance of non-standard families, commitment to religion, and tolerance towards minorities partially explain the association between socioeconomic characteristics and tolerance. After controlling for values, a U-shaped relation was observed in that men with the lowest educational attainment have higher tolerance than those who completed high school.論文Papers