世論 What Japan Thinks

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

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

This is quite the longest survey I’ve translated for a while, but it is a fascinating set of figures. The sample size is perhaps slightly small, but the processing of the data seems to have been very detailed, so I would place a high degree of trust on these statistics.

Basic survey demographics

	Single	Married	Total
Male 20 to 24 y.o.	47	44	91
Male 25 to 29 y.o.	50	39	89
Male 30 to 34 y.o.	47	47	94
Male 35 to 39 y.o.	45	50	95
Total Male	189	180	369
Female 20 to 24 y.o.	47	50	97
Female 25 to 29 y.o.	49	50	99
Female 30 to 34 y.o.	47	50	97
Female 35 to 39 y.o.	47	50	97
Total Female	190	200	390
Total Male and Female	379	380	759

The above figures were taken and adjusted to reflect the true demographics of Japan, so the following table lists the effective figures that will be used for the rest of the survey.

Adjusted demographics

	Single	Married	Total
Male 20 to 24 y.o.	87	6	93
Male 25 to 29 y.o.	76	32	108
Male 30 to 34 y.o.	43	53	96
Male 35 to 39 y.o.	26	61	87
Total Male	232	152	384
Female 20 to 24 y.o.	80	10	90
Female 25 to 29 y.o.	59	46	105
Female 30 to 34 y.o.	29	65	94
Female 35 to 39 y.o.	17	69	86
Total Female	185	190	375
Total Male and Female	417	342	759

Q1: Do you want to get married? (Sample size=417, unmarried people)

	All N=417	Male N=232	Female N=185
Yes	89.8%	89.0%	90.8%
No	10.2%	11.0%	9.2%

This desire to wed is up 1.3% from the same survey last year; men are 2.5 percentage points more willing, but women 0.3 percentage points less so.

The sample sizes for Q2 and Q3 are not clearly stated, so they might be wrong. Q4 has correct sample sizes, however.

Q2: At what age do you want to get married? (Sample size=417, unmarried people)

All N=417	Male N=232	Female N=185
32.4 years old	33.1 years old	31.5 years old

This is 0.7 years younger than in the survey last year, for both men and women. In the detailed breakdown by age, both men and women between 35 and 39 years old wanted to get married by forty, on average.

Q3: At what age do you want your first child? (Sample size=417, unmarried people)

All N=417	Male N=232	Female N=185
32.4 years old	33.2 years old	31.3 years old

Note that the figures here suggest that the bride should be nine months gone by the time of the wedding! Looking at the detailed breakdown for each age group and sex, the largest gap between getting married and having the first child is for women between 35 and 39 years old; they want their child at 39.4 years old on average, six months before getting married.

Q4: How many children do you want? (Sample size=369, unmarried people who want to get married)

	1 child	2 children	3 children	4 or more children	No answer	Average
All, N=369	10.1%	64.1%	23.1%	1.5%	1.1%	2.2 children
Male, N=207	7.9%	63.2%	26.0%	1.3%	1.3%	2.2 children
Female, N=162	13.1%	65.3%	19.4%	1.4%	0.7%	2.1 children

Zero children doesn’t seem to be an option!

A couple of bonus minor questions for the singles: as was seen before, 89.8% wanted to marry; 70.9% have or are going out with someone they thought about as a marriage partner, 6.9% have already proposed (successfully or not is not recorded!), and 23.7% have sensed their partner was thinking about marriage.

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