世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s my favourite kind of goo Ranking, looking at matters of love, this time being on how to tell your man you want to marry him.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of November 2010 1,171 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 11.3% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, 9.6% in their fifties, and 7.6% 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. Note that for this question only the women answered.

It’s my favourite sort of survey as there’s always scope for answers to stray into downright weird territory, with this being no exception, although it could have got even more creepy, I suppose. Number 3 is quite a sad answer, as many Japanese women in the entertainment industry at least set themselves targets of getting married by a specific age. Number 30 initially seems very low, but remember that 30% of women in their twenties who marry have a bun in the oven, and only 10% of babies are born out of wedlock.

Ranking result

Q: What would you do to push your boyfriend towards marriage? (Sample size=588)

Rank		Score
1	Take him to meet the parents	100
2	Often cook for him	80.6
3	Say things like “I want to get before I’m x years old”	73.8
4	Talk about friends’ happy married life	57.3
5	Go together to a bridal event	44.7
6	Propose to him	41.7
7	Talk about what I’d do after having children	39.8
8	Go to look at rings together	37.9
9	Go to look at furniture together	34.0
10	Enlist the help of his parents on the quiet	28.2
11	Say “You’d be lost without me”	27.2
12=	Open a joint bank account	23.3
12=	Talk about how my parents have suggested an arranged marriage	23.3
14	Say “I couldn’t live without you”	21.4
15	Become a fixture in his house, spend the night	20.4
16=	Buy a number of wedding information magazines	19.4
16=	Drop hints about how a fortune teller said we were compatable	19.4
18	Worry about how I’m at the appropriate age for having babies	18.4
19	Enlist the help of his friends on the quiet	16.5
20	Let him see me cuddling a baby	14.6
21	Take him along to friends’ wedding after parties	14.6
22=	Lie that someone else proposed to me	13.6
22=	Go to look at new houses together	13.6
24=	Go to look at wedding dresses together	12.6
24=	Start a bridal savings plan	12.6
24=	Whenever he asks for something reply with “OK, when we are married”	12.6
27	Lie that I might be moving back to my home town	10.7
28	Introduce him to my relatives	9.7
29	Ask him to move in with me	6.8
30	Lie that I’m pregnant	2.9