世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking recently took a look at a question that seems simple at first glace, why did you decide to marry, for both men deciding and women deciding.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of April 2010 1,187 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-base questionnaire. 61.4% of the sample were female, 10.1% in their teens, 17.4% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, 24.9% in their forties, 10.1% in their fifties, and 6.5% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. Only the men in the sample answered this question.

As a cultural note, “Because he’d/she’d decided to change jobs” implies more a posting within the company to a differnt town rather than actually changing employers, and more often than not these postings are effectively mandatory and at short notice.

As another cultural note, given the number of shotgun weddings in the country I’m surprised that that reason was so low in the ranking here!

Ranking result

Q: What was the deciding reason for getting married? (Sample size=458, male)

Rank		Score
1	Because I thought I wanted to live together	100
2	Because I thought I needed her	47.1
3	Because I was of the age when people like me get married	46.3
4	Because I thought if I let her go I’d regret it for the rest of my life	26.4
5=	Because I thought I could protect her	24.0
5=	Because I thought she needed me	24.0
7	Because we’d been going out for so long I thought it was about time	19.0
8	Because I thought I wanted to make my parents happy	17.4
9	Because she was of the marrying age	10.7
10	Because she was pregnant	9.9
11=	Because she was urging me to marry	7.4
11=	Because I got confident in my job	7.4
13=	Because we wanted children	6.6
13=	Because I’d saved up money	6.6
15	Because my salary increased	5.0
16	Because my parents liked her	4.1
17=	Because her parents were concerned	0.8
17=	Because I’d decided to switch jobs	0.8
17=	Because my salary decreased	0.8
17=	Because she talked about breaking up	0.8

Q: What was the deciding reason for getting married? (Sample size=726, female)

Rank		Score
1	Because I thought I wanted to live together	100
2	Because I thought I needed him	58.8
3	Because I was of the age when people like me get married	56.9
4	Because I thought I wanted to make my parents happy	27.8
5	Because we’d been going out for so long I thought it was about time	27.5
6=	Because I thought if I let him go I’d regret it for the rest of my life	26.7
6=	Because I thought he needed me	26.7
8	Because I was pregnant	18.4
9	Because we wanted children	12.5
10	Because he was urging me to marry	7.5
11	Because I thought I could protect him	7.1
12	Because he was of the marrying age	5.9
13	Because he’d decided to switch jobs	5.5
14	Because my parents liked him	4.3
15	Because I’d saved up money	2.4
16	Because my salary decreased	1.6
17	Because I got confident in my job	1.2
18	Because his parents were concerned	0.8
19=	Because I’d decided to switch jobs	0.4
19=	Because my salary increased	0.4