世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com, in conjunction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked at what people did regarding their mobile phone batteries. They interviewed 337 mobile phone users from their internet monitor group by means of a private internet survey. 79.5% of the sample was male, with 14.8% in their twenties, 35.0% in their thirties, 33.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

In the final part we look at how people meet; for me, I’d definitely be in the “Other” category, as the tale of how I met my wife is perhaps not an unusual method for foreigners (no, I wasn’t her English teacher!), but the circumstances surrounding it were quite interesting. Basically, the timing was perfect for both of us, but if any one thing had happened differently we may never have lasted more than one or two dates; even an earthquake in Portland played a part…
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

This portion of the survey deals in part with middle-age divorce. This is the phenomenon whereby round about retirement, usually, marriages just break up because of many factors, including the husband now being nothing without work, or the wife no longer having peace and quiet now he’s home all day. This statistic may increase in a couple of years time as there is a change in the law coming through that will allow divorced women to get at their share of the ex-husband’s pension more easily.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

This is quite the longest survey I’ve translated for a while, but it is a fascinating set of figures. The sample size is perhaps slightly small, but the processing of the data seems to have been very detailed, so I would place a high degree of trust on these statistics.
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goo Research recently published the results of some detailed investigation into the use of portable music players. Over four days at the end of March they interviewd by means of a private internet questionnaire 2,183 members of their monitor group. The respondents were 48.2% male, with 19.1% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 19.7% in their thirties, 21.2% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 4.8% in their sixties, and 1.2% seventy years old or more.

Note that MP3 player refers to either memory based or hard-disk based players only like iPods or D-Snaps, not CD players that support MP3 file formats. I am not sure under what category phones with music playback support are recorded; perhaps they are “Other”?

I’ve recently been testing a Sony NW-A3000 but I couldn’t really recommend it to anyone. The 20 Gb hard disk is nice, of course, but the PC-based software is unwieldy to say the least, as is the player software. Pet hates include that random shuffle seems not as random as it should be, doing Pause then Play will result in a one-second or so skip, and recharging the player resets the player back to the first track. I’ve heard that the iPod balances out the volume, but the Sony doesn’t, so I have to keep fiddling with the sound levels. On the other hand, I did manage to find an almost complete archive of Just A Minute, but on the downside I perhaps scare the other train passengers as I try to stifle laughs during my commute.
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked at the use of video sharing sites. 1,011 internet users from all over the country completed an online questionnaire; 57.5% of the sample were female, 24.2% in their twenties, 43.9% in their thirties, 23.0% in their forties, and 8.9% in their fifties.

YouTube is apparently a current hot topic of discussion, with over 2 million Japanese visitors reported. My main concern regarding these places is the copyright isssues, as there are many blatant rips of Japanese TV being uploaded, which is illegal regardless of any added value the uploader has attached, for example Lazer Ramon HG’s subtitled adventures!
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Watching Trivia no Izumi tonight, I saw this rather entertaining optical illusion, assuming your browser chooses a suitable Japanese font:

杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー杏マナー

Or going uphill:

ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏ーナマ杏

In further trivia news, by harnessing the power of 200 standard fire extinquishers, you can generate enough upthrust to lift a man a whole two centimetres.

Having yesterday looked at what the workers think of being asked to do stuff for their boss regarding computers, today japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked into how bosses asked their underlings for help with computer-related tasks. They interviewed 331 people in management positions in private companies, but the male to female ratio was not specified, although it might have been a depressing figure. 68.3% were in their forties, 28.1% in their fifties, and 3.6% in their sixties.

Note that since this survey was an internet-based one there will be a bias towards more technically-competent bosses, so the figures should show the bosses in a better light than yesterday’s survey did! In addition, one would expect the workers to be more negative about their bosses and the bosses to be more positive about their own skills.
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked into how workers helped out their bosses with computer-related tasks. There is the promise of them reporting later on how bosses view their subordinates’ use of computers, which I eagerly await! They interviewed 330 people in non-management positions in private companies, 79.1% male. 17.6% were in their twenties, 48.8% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.

Rather than the typical Dilbert image of the Pointy-Haired Boss (hmm, I can’t find that cartoon strip on the internet!), I’ve chosen the Japanese equivalent for the title, the Bar Code-Haired Boss. The boss here refers, I believe, to anyone in management that is above the respondent in the office hierarchy, rather than just the direct boss.

I don’t have much direct contact with management, but do I see a lot of the effects of a lack of skill. My biggest gripe is the inappropriate use of tools; Excel seems the tool of choice for memos, diagramming, etc; and PowerPoint rather than Word for specifications and other technical documentation.
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The Japanese Government’s Statistical Bureau recently released statistics on what I think is the biggest problem that will face Japan in the coming year, namely the decline in the number of births, which coupled with the aging population, is going to put an enormous strain on Japan’s finances in the years to come.

This year too (measured on the first of April) the number of children aged under 15 hit another record low, a 25 year unbroken decline in the birth rate. The headline figures are 17,470,000 children under 15 years old, representing 13.7% of the population, down 0.1 percentage points from last year. There also seems to be an imbalance in the sex distribution, with 105.3 boys for every 100 girls. The reason for this may be worth investigating.
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