世論 What Japan Thinks

Maids versus butlers would be a good title for a video game I suspect, but here it is just two related surveys from iShare, one on maids and the other on butlers.

Demographics

For the maid survey, between the 10th and 17th of August 2009 618 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 34.3% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

For the butler survey, between the 11th and 18th of August 2009 587 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were male, 33.6% in their twenties, 32.0% in their thirties, and 34.4% in their forties.

I’ll report the two surveys interleaved as the questions are similar in each. First will be the maid question which I will suffix with an M, so we get Q1M, for instance, then the butler question with a B, as in Q1B, etc.

Both maid cafes and butler cafes exist in Japan, as do female butler cafes, and no doubt male maid ones do too, but I’m not really in the mood for searching. Incidentally, I’ve recently twice seen on my train back from work a guy looking like a very ordinary otaku type except for a cheap maid dress, trying to hide his stubble behind some foundation, so perhaps he works at some low-end seedy male maid joint?

Research results

Q1M: Do you get lonely when at home by yourself? (Sample size=618)

	All	Male N=350	Female N=268
Frequently	4.5%	4.9%	4.1%
Sometimes	42.7%	45.4%	39.2%
Never	52.8%	49.7%	56.7%

Q1B: Do you get lonely when at home by yourself? (Sample size=587)

	All	Male N=321	Female N=266
Frequently	6.3%	5.3%	7.5%
Sometimes	49.4%	49.2%	49.6%
Never	44.3%	45.5%	42.9%

Q2M: If you had the money to afford it, would you want to have a maid to do the housework for you? (Sample size=618)

	All	Male N=350	Female N=268
Would really want (to SQMs)	12.6%	11.7%	13.8%
Would like to try it out (to SQMs)	27.3%	30.3%	23.5%
Don’t want	60.0%	58.0%	62.7%

Q2B: If you had the money to afford it, would you want to have a butler to entrust the housework, etc to? (Sample size=587)

	All	Male N=321	Female N=266
Would really want (to SQBs)	10.4%	9.0%	12.0%
Would like to try it out (to SQBs)	25.6%	21.2%	30.8%
Don’t want	64.1%	69.8%	57.1%

Those who felt lonely were more likely to want a helper around the home. Also note the subtly different wording for the two questions.

Q2SQ1M: What would you most want to ask the maid to do? (Sample size=247)

	All	Male N=147	Female N=100
Cleaning	54.7%	49.0%	63.0%
Cooking	26.7%	26.5%	27.0%
Talking with me	8.5%	11.6%	4.0%
Washing clothes	5.3%	7.5%	2.0%
Shopping	2.0%	1.4%	3.0%
Other	2.8%	4.1%	1.0%

Q2SQ1B: What would you most want to ask the butler to do? (Sample size=211)

	All	Male N=97	Female N=114
Cleaning	53.6%	53.6%	53.5%
Cooking	29.9%	24.7%	34.2%
Washing clothes	6.2%	10.3%	2.6%
Talking with me	3.8%	5.2%	2.6%
Shopping	1.4%	1.0%	1.8%
Other	5.2%	5.2%	5.3%

Q2SQ2M: What would you want the maid to wear? (Sample size=247)

	All	Male N=147	Female N=100
Ordinary clothes	68.0%	59.2%	81.0%
Maid costume	27.5%	35.4%	16.0%
Kimono	4.5%	5.4%	3.0%

Q2SQ2B: What would you want the butler to wear? (Sample size=211)

	All	Male N=97	Female N=114
Ordinary clothes	64.0%	67.0%	61.4%
Butler costume	32.7%	29.9%	35.1%
Kimono	3.3%	3.1%	3.5%

Q3M: Would you like to go to a maid cafe? (Sample size=618)

	All	Male N=350	Female N=268
Have already been	9.7%	10.6%	8.6%
Really want to go	2.9%	2.9%	3.0%
Might want to go	25.1%	22.3%	28.7%
Don’t want to go	62.3%	64.3%	59.7%

Q3B: Would you like to go to a butler cafe? (Sample size=587)

	All	Male N=321	Female N=266
Have already been	2.6%	0.3%	5.3%
Really want to go	5.1%	2.8%	7.9%
Might want to go	19.8%	14.3%	26.3%
Don’t want to go	72.6%	82.6%	60.5%

Q4M: Would you like a maid to clean your ears? (Sample size=618)

	All	Male N=350	Female N=268
Really want	4.4%	6.9%	1.1%
Would want if there was the opportunity	21.7%	32.3%	7.8%
Don’t want	73.9%	60.9%	91.0%

Q4B: Would you like a butler to clean your ears? (Sample size=587)

	All	Male N=321	Female N=266
Really want	2.4%	3.1%	1.5%
Would want if there was the opportunity	11.4%	15.3%	6.8%
Don’t want	86.2%	81.6%	91.7%