世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.

This is a survey I really don’t want to translate as the figures are rather depressing, but I shall endeavour to make as good a translation as possible as this data is an important record of one aspect of the state of Japanese society. This first part paints quite a bleak picture, especially if you consider that there might be an element of under-reporting. Looking at the raesons why people didn’t discuss their injuries, societal pressure looks quite large as a factor. Domestic violence is, I fear, not a subject that is discussed honestly and openly; in fact, the most recent time I heard about it was in relation to Kaoru Sugita last year, where she was almost boasting about getting drunk and beating up her husband.

Age

	All N=2,888	Female N=1,578	Male N=1,310
20-29	11.1%	11.9%	10.3%
30-39	17.9%	18.7%	17.0%
40-49	18.3%	18.6%	18.0%
50-59	21.2%	22.0%	20.3%
60+	31.4%	28.9%	34.4%

Marital status

	All N=2,888	Female N=1,578	Male N=1,310
Never married	16.4%	15.4%	17.6%
Married	72.5%	70.3%	75.3%
Divorced	3.9%	5.3%	2.1%
Widowed	4.2%	5.7%	2.1%
No answer	3.0%	3.3%	2.6%

Q1: Have you ever experienced the following from your spouse?

Females, N=1,283

	Many times	Once or twice	Never	No answer
Physical violence	5.8%	20.8%	71.6%	1.7%
Mental harassment or terror	5.3%	10.8%	81.8%	2.1%
Sexual coercion	5.2%	10.0%	82.5%	2.3%
Any of the above	10.6%	22.6%	64.8%	2.0%

Males, N=1,045

	Many times	Once or twice	Never	No answer
Physical violence	1.3%	12.4%	85.2%	1.1%
Mental harassment or terror	1.6%	6.5%	89.9%	2.0%
Sexual coercion	0.1%	3.3%	94.3%	2.3%
Any of the above	2.6%	14.8%	80.9%	1.7%

Q2: Have you experienced any of the above in Q1 within the last five years?

	Female N=1,283	Male N=1,045
Yes (to SQ1)	14.1%	8.6%
No	20.7%	14.1%
No answer	65.2%	77.3%

Presumably the high “No answer” rate was mostly due to people who said they had never experienced violence in Q1 not answering Q2.

Q2SQ1: Who did you talk to about your assault? (Multiple answer)

	Female N=179	Male N=90
Friends	29.1%	12.2%
Family or relatives	30.2%	6.7%
Police	3.4%	1.1%
Health professional	2.8%	2.2%
Lawyer, counsellor, etc	1.7%	2.2%
Domestic violence support centre	0.6%	1.1%
Regional legal affairs bureau, human rights group	0.0%	2.2%
Family support centre, woman’s centre, etc	0.6%	0.0%
Other public body	0.0%	1.1%
School councellor, teacher, etc	0.0%	0.0%
Other	1.7%	1.1%
Nobody (to SQ2)	46.9%	84.4%
No answer	5.0%	0.0%

Q2SQ2: Why did you not talk to anyone? (Multiple answer)

	Female N=179	Male N=90
Didn’t think it was worth talking about	45.2%	69.7%
I thought I would look bad too	39.3%	44.7%
If I just endured it, it would be OK	29.8%	15.8%
I thought it would be ineffective to talk about it	20.2%	17.1%
I couldn’t say anything because of embarrassment	26.2%	7.9%
I thought it was my partner’s expression of love	13.1%	14.5%
It would be unseemly	13.1%	7.9%
I didn’t want to get anyone else involved	9.5%	3.9%
I didn’t know it was OK to speak to anyone	9.5%	2.6%
I didn’t want to recall the incident	7.1%	3.9%
If it was known that I’d talked about it, I thought they’d be reprisals or I’d experience even worse violence	4.8%	1.3%
I thought the words or actions of the person I talked to would be an unpleasant experience	4.8%	1.3%
If other people knew, I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate to people at work, school, etc	4.8%	1.3%
My partner threatened me if I talked to someone	0.0%	0.0%
Other	7.1%	3.0%
No answer	2.4%	1.3%

Q3: When did you first suffer injury from your partner?

	Female N=426	Male N=182
Dating	7.7%	5.5%
Engaged	2.1%	6.0%
Married or living together	56.6%	58.2%
Pregnancy	3.1%	1.1%
Soon after giving birth	2.1%	1.1%
During child-rearing	9.9%	7.7%
Around divorce	2.1%	2.7%
Other	6.1%	3.8%
No answer	10.3%	13.7%

Q4: What happened after you suffered injury from your partner?

	Female N=426	Male N=182
Broke up	4.7%	1.6%
Wanted to break up, but didn’t (to SQ)	43.2%	21.4%
Didn’t want to break up	38.5%	60.4%
No answer	13.6%	16.5%

Q4SQ: Why didn’t you break up?

	Female N=184	Male N=39
Was scared of partner’s response	4.3%	2.6%
Financial insecurity	27.7%	7.7%
Worried about appearances in society	9.2%	23.1%
Thought my partner needed me	6.5%	10.3%
Didn’t think it would happen again	15.8%	17.9%
People close to me were opposed to a separation	5.4%	2.6%
Partner would not agree to a separation	8.2%	10.3%
Other	20.7%	23.1%
No answer	2.2%	2.6%

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]