世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s an interesting survey from goo Ranking, looking at what people use as their own barometer of an improving economy.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 8th of August 2013 the survey was conducted, but goo Ranking have still not got round to adding the page that contains the further demographic information. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

As I work for a company that is a bit, err, under the weather, shall we say, I suppose any barometer I have would be rather pessimistic one, so I shall not share. However, for the second number 3, our employee trips got cancelled last year, not that I personally miss them, but that’s another story!

Ranking result

Q: What is your own personal barometer of an improving economy? (Sample size=just over 1,000)

Rank		Score
1	Premium ice cream outselling cheap kinds	100
2	Proper beer outselling beer-like drinks	85.1
3=	Frequencies that friends go on overseas travel	63.9
3=	Employee trips switch from domestic to overseas locations	63.9
5	Job-hunting friends get multiple job offers	51.9
6	Cannot book restaurants on Friday evenings	51.0
7	Boss buys me drinks	50.2
8	A long queue for taxis form even before the last train	49.0
9	Friends ask me to join them eating out more often	48.5
10	Domestic appliance sales increase	47.3
11	Elegance rather than functionality becomes the trend in fashion	46.1
12	There’s huge queues at department store food courts	44.4
13	All the computers, desks, etc in the office get replaced	42.3
14	Friends buy me drinks	40.7
15	The amount of advertisements in newspapers increase	40.2
16	Even on weekdays evenings I cannot get a taxi	36.9
17	My mailbox bulges with leaflets for new houses	33.6
18	Lots of my friends buy big-screen televisions	29.9
19	At the weekends the lights are on in almost all the rooms in posh hotels	28.6
20	I spend over 10,000 yen at a department store’s make-up counter	28.2
21	Nearby companies start moving to bigger premises	24.9
22	Lots of my friends buy smartphones	22.8
23	There are huge queues on the first day of sale of new products	22.4
24	Even expensive parking (600 yen per hour or more) is full up	19.5
25	Job fairs are frequently held at Tokyo Dome, other huge event spaces	18.3