世論 What Japan Thinks

With the economy tanking, and with many firms announcing pay freezes if not cuts, this survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into wives and foreign exchange is rather timely.

Demographics

On the 2nd of February 2009 300 married women from the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 7.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 44.3% in their thirties, 32.0% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

With perfect timing the Financial Times has a long but worth reading article on female Japanese foreign exchange investors.

I’d love to know more about the 96.4% who didn’t find full time jobs. Were they looking? How many were already employed?

Research results

From the original 300, 72.7%, or 218 women, felt that the family budgeting had become tighter compared to several years ago. From that group, 63.3%, or 138 women, or 46.0% of the whole sample were taking measures to help balance the family budget. These 138 were asked the following question.

Q1: In order to help balanace the family budget, which of the following are you doing? (Sample size=138, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Economising	117	84.8%
Started a part-time job	28	20.3%
Started home-working	17	12.3%
Asked parents for help	8	5.8%
Found a full-time (temp or permanent) job	5	3.6%

Next, the original 300 were asked the following.

Q2: Have you ever thought about starting foreign exchange (FX) trading? (Sample size=300)

Yes, but not started	23.7%
Yes, and have started (to SQ)	5.0%
No	71.3%

Q2SQ: When did you start foreign exchange (FX) trading? (Sample size=15)

2003 or earlier	0.0%
2004	13.3%
2005	6.7%
2006	20.0%
2007	13.3%
2008	40.0%
2009	6.7%