世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1 | part 2]

I have translated this slightly old survey from Hi-Ho Marketing Services regarding alcohol consumption and attitudes. This survey was carried out at the end of May 2003 by means of an internet questionnaire amongst 6,055 people from all over the country. 43.4% of the respondents were male, and 67.4% were married. 40.0% were in their thirties, and just a fraction under 25% were in their twenties and their forties.

Alcohol consumption is one of the subjects in Japan that I find extremely fascinating; there is no stigma to getting drunk, in fact it is almost a badge of honour to be “strong with alcohol”. However, this manifests itself within society as, I fear, a nation of “kitchen drinkers”, the wonderful Japanese-English term for secret boozers (the term applies to both men and women) who enjoy rather more than they should at home. There is almost no alcohol eduction here, not even something as simple as the western recommendations of no more than 21 units per week (for men), although I have heard doctors on TV recommend taking one or two days off per week. I have spent some time trying to track down official consumption recommendations with little success; Japanese official units of alcohol appear to be larger than Western ones, and even around 150 millilitres of alcohol per day is portrayed as perhaps being dangerous after ten to fifteen years of continuous consumption.

Also, drunks are basically celebrated on television; the most famous is perhaps Kaoru Sugita, a well-known alcoholic“talent” whose tales of her own drunken violence would have her on Oprah or in the Betty Ford clinic in the USA, but here they are just fodder for the entertainment circuit. I also have my suspicions about another middle-aged famous actress and entertainer who I suspect fuels her spontaneity with booze.

I, personally, drink almost never at home – the only times I can remember since I got married was two or three times I got a free sample beer. This weekend I’m off to Oyamazaki distillery, where I am due to get a 300ml sampler of whisky free present from them which will no doubt sit in a cupboard gathering dust until we end up giving it away as a gift!

Anyway, back to the survey.

Q1: What kinds of alcohol do you drink at home? (Sample size=4,546 (home drinkers), multiple answer)

Beer	72.0%
Happoshu	69.1%
Wine	62.3%
Canned chuhai, sours, and other pre-mixed drinks	59.5%
Sake (Nihonshu)	42.1%
Self-mixed shochu-based drinks	33.2%
Umeshu and other fruit alcohol excluding wine	28.6%
Brandy, whisk(e)y	17.9%
Cocktail, liqueur	17.8%
Non-alcohol beer	4.3%
Non-alcohol Wine	1.1%
Other	1.1%
Don’t know	0.1%

Note that with 4,546 people drinking at home from a pool of 6,005, that tells us, for this survey anyway, that over 75% of the population drink at home. Breaking down the top six categories by frequency, we get the following data. Note that there are quite a lot of people in each category who very infrequently drink, so without a cross-reference to see if the same people are infrequent drinkers in each category, it’s difficult to get an exact picture of drinking habits.

Q2: How often do you drink each kind of alcohol? (Sample size=4,546 (home drinkers))

	Almost every day	4 or 5 times per week	2 or 3 times per week	Once per week	2 or 3 times per month	Once per month	Few times per year	Almost never
Beer N=3,275	8.3%	4.7%	15.1%	22.4%	20.2%	13.0%	10.4%	5.9%
Happoshu N=3,140	23.1%	9.4%	20.9%	17.8%	12.1%	6.3%	4.8%	5.8%
Wine N=2,830	2.9%	2.2%	6.2%	11.8%	17.7%	20.1%	29.0%	10.1%
Canned chuhai, etc N=2,707	3.8%	3.7%	14.9%	19.8%	21.3%	12.9%	13.9%	9.6%
Sake N=1,912	3.8%	2.2%	7.9%	10.9%	14.1%	16.8%	25.6%	18.5%
Self-mixed shochu N=1,511	15.1%	7.7%	14.1%	12.6%	10.9%	7.5%	8.9%	23.2%

Note that over one in six of the total population drink happoshu almost every day!

Q3: This year, how has your drinking frequency at home changed? (Sample size=4,546 (home drinkers))

Greatly increased	4.7%
Somewhat increased	20.5%
Not changed	50.2%
Somewhat decreased	17.3%
Greatly decreased	7.3%

Some of the reasons for increased home drinking were it being expensive to drink outside, stress had increased, and due to traffic regulations reform (presumably drink-driving laws) stopped drinking outside. Reasons for a decrease included salary being reduced, damage to health, and dieting.

Q4: This year, how has your drinking frequency at home changed, by types of alcoholic drink? (Sample size=4,546 (home drinkers), multiple answer)

	Increased	Decreased	Unchanged
Non-alcohol beer N=197	65.5%	4.1%	30.5%
Happoshu N=3,140	29.9%	21.8%	48.3%
Canned chuhai, sours, and other pre-mixed drinks N=2,707	23.2%	23.6%	53.2%
Self-mixed shochu-based drinks N=1,511	22.4%	16.4%	61.2%
Umeshu and other fruit alcohol excluding wine N=1,299	16.9%	25.7%	57.4%
Non-alcohol Wine N=50	16.0%	0.0%	84.0%
Cocktail, liqueur N=813	12.5%	36.0%	51.4%
Wine N=2,830	12.5%	26.3%	61.2%
Brandy, whisk(e)y N=236	10.6%	35.2%	54.2%
Sake (Nihonshu) N=1,912	8.7%	26.5%	64.8%
Beer N=3,275	8.1%	50.0%	41.9%
Other N=49	30.6%	24.5%	44.9%

Note that the trend for increased drinking seems to be driven primarily by cost – happoshu and chuhai are relatively cheap per unit of alcohol.

Q5: In the future, what sort of alcoholic drink might you be drinking more of? (Sample size=4,546 (home drinkers), multiple answer)

Wine N=2,830	22.1%
Canned chuhai, sours, and other pre-mixed drinks N=2,707	20.1%
Umeshu and other fruit alcohol excluding wine N=1,299	18.7%
Happoshu N=3,140	17.6%
Cocktail, liqueur N=813	14.7%
Self-mixed shochu-based drinks N=1,511	12.2%
Non-alcohol beer N=197	11.9%
Sake (Nihonshu) N=1,912	11.3%
Beer N=3,275	10.6%
Brandy, whisk(e)y N=236	6.9%
Non-alcohol Wine N=50	6.0%
Other N=49	1.7%

[part 1 | part 2]