世論 What Japan Thinks

To follow up on my previous survey from O-Net and Rakuten, here is a pretty massive survey from Macromill Research looking at coming of age in 2011 – it was released on the 7th of January but didn’t appear in their feed until the 28th. This will be presented in three parts.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of December 2010 500 members of the Macromill monitor group born in 1990 or 1991 who would be coming of age in 2011 completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female.

In Q15 I must say I am most happy to see that beer takes its rightful place at the top of the list of things to be glad about when turning twenty! Furthermore, voting coming second is another heartening sign.
Read the rest of this entry »

To follow up on my previous survey from O-Net and Rakuten, here is a pretty massive survey from Macromill Research looking at coming of age in 2011 – it was released on the 7th of January but didn’t appear in their feed until the 28th. This will be presented in three parts.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of December 2010 500 members of the Macromill monitor group born in 1990 or 1991 who would be coming of age in 2011 completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female.

In Q7, Q8 and Q9 it’s good to see that the new adults are interested in how the country is being run (into the ground). Let’s hope that they take some action on that, although I wouldn’t want to see activities like are happening in the Middle East as we do have an open and reasonably fair political system here. However, I did actually hear some talking heads on the TV last night looking briefly at whether such events might occur in Japan too.
Read the rest of this entry »

To follow up on my previous survey from O-Net and Rakuten, here is a pretty massive survey from Macromill Research looking at coming of age in 2011 – it was released on the 7th of January but didn’t appear in their feed until the 28th. This will be presented in three parts.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of December 2010 500 members of the Macromill monitor group born in 1990 or 1991 who would be coming of age in 2011 completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female.

Not surprising in Q5 top of the desired jobs is working for the government – salaries are pretty good even at the local level, little overtime, and very little chance of being made redundant.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Japanese primary schools about to start compulsory English lessons, this survey from iShare took a look at people’s English ability and children’s English lessons. As it’s rather a long survey and lends itself into splitting into two, I’ll do just that.

Demographics

Over the 17th and 18th of January 2011 1,722 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service in full-time employment completed a private internet-based survey. 579 people had children of primary school age or younger, 62.0% of the sample were male, 52.2% in their thirties, and 47.8% in their forties.

I recently saw a program where they sent a guy to join an elementary school English class to see how he’d fare. It did seem rather useless, with a native English teacher leading the class in songs and roleplay but a Japanese teacher on hand to command the class. The roleplay feature was that essential skill for life, ordering fast food, with the opening line being a stereotypically Japanese pronunciation of “Harro!”; the kids however seemed to enjoy it and had a relatively good command of the rest of the script.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Japanese primary schools about to start compulsory English lessons, this survey from iShare took a look at people’s English ability and children’s English lessons. As it’s rather a long survey and lends itself into splitting into two, I’ll do just that.

Demographics

Over the 17th and 18th of January 2011 1,722 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service in full-time employment completed a private internet-based survey. 579 people had children of primary school age or younger, 62.0% of the sample were male, 52.2% in their thirties, and 47.8% in their forties.

Q3 is a funny one to me – I don’t really associate primary school with studying, so I can’t say there is anything academic I should have put more effort into, although I do wish I’d persevered more with music-making as I wish I didn’t have such a tin ear.

My employer requires various levels of TOEIC scores before promotion to higher levels and there is also some indirect input of English skill into a system for rating skill level. Conversely, they have zero requirement for foreigners to speak Japanese, an issue that I regularly take up with personnel.
Read the rest of this entry »

This survey from Macromill Research takes a look at the latest internet service that is tipped by some to take off in Japan, Facebook, from the perspective of those using it, but these early adoptors seem to be quite different from the typical Japanese.

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of January 2011 500 members of the Macromill monitor group who were also Facebook members completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 69.6% of the sample were male, 1.6% in their teens, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 30.2% in their forties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Note Q1, 31% having lived overseas. This is very high, and although the survey didn’t define how long to count, the Japanese used indicated that more than a foreign holiday or a business trip would count, and even a short-term homestay might be out of scope. This is backed up by the 30% searching for foreign friends, indicating that it is a more internationalised crowd that sign up for the service.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Cabinet Office Japan released the results of a survey last month into animal welfare. Note that the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals mentioned later in the survey has an official English translation, if you’re interested in that.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 12th of September 2010 3,000 people over the age of 20 chosen at random from resident registers were approached to complete a face-to-face questionnaire. 1,939 people were available and completed the survey, a response rate of 64.6%. 54.8% of the sample were male, 9.2% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 19.9% aged seventy or older.

I remember as a child my brother (or it could have been me…) drawing a picture of what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he chose to be in charge of the euthanasia section of the local pound.

The Act on Welfare and Management of Animals is pretty tame; the average Japanese pet shop has cages stacked two or three high giving dogs little space to stand, let alone play. They get put on display after about six weeks, so don’t get weaned properly, and there are persistant rumours that if they get past their sell-by date of around five months or so, they get sent back to the breeder for “disposal”.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Cabinet Office Japan released the results of a survey last month into animal welfare. Note that the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals mentioned later in the survey has an official English translation, if you’re interested in that.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 12th of September 2010 3,000 people over the age of 20 chosen at random from resident registers were approached to complete a face-to-face questionnaire. 1,939 people were available and completed the survey, a response rate of 64.6%. 54.8% of the sample were male, 9.2% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 19.9% aged seventy or older.

Comparing the answers for cats and dogs, I don’t really know why pet cats run twice the risk of getting their wedding tackle removed!
Read the rest of this entry »

This is a very interesting survey from iShare, looking at the subject of children becoming independent from their parents and vice versa.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 6th of December 2010 1,088 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service with a child aged 15 years old or younger completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.1% of the sample were male, 43.6% in their thirties, 52.3% in their forties, and 4.1% in their fifties.

I don’t think I particularly hated going out with the parents when I was a child, nor do I remember any definite time in my schooldays where I felt I had broken away from them; however, I suspect my mother might have a completely different answer looking at it from her side!

Note that in Q3SQ, almost all Japanese schoolchildren (as far as I know!) take lunchboxes to school and are expected to have their mid-day meal in the classroom, whereas when I was a kid most people who were within walking distance of the school went home for lunch.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last year (I’m just getting round to translating it now!) iShare conducted an interesting survey looking into family budget management, split into two parts, those who wish to marry and those already married. Today is the unmarried half of the survey.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of December 2010 1,140 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split into two groups; first, there were 568 unmarried but hoping to be married people; 66.9% of them were male, 18.5% in their twenties, and 81.5% in their thirties. Next, 572 were married, with 55.9% of them male, 6.1% in their twenties, and 93.9% in their thirties.

It’s interesting to note that the amount of married men who would like to keep their salary and saving secret is about double the amount of unmarried men who said they would want to keep it secret!
Read the rest of this entry »