世論 What Japan Thinks

The Cabinet Office Japan recently took a look at the international movement of workers, which for this survey was specifically Japanese wanting to work overseas and foreigners coming to Japan.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of July 2010 3,000 people randomly selected from resident registration information were approached for face-to-face interviews. Of the 3,000, 1,913 people, or 63.8% were available and answered the questions. 54.0% of the sample were female, 8.6% in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 17.8% in their forties, 18.6% in their fifties, 19.8% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged 70 or older. There were a few other demographic questions, but they were sufficiently interesting to be presented in distinct tables below.

I wonder if the last two questions about foreign workers are in any way related to this article from Ampontan, in particular this quote from Naoto Kan, who is Prime Minister at the time of writing, but may not be by the time you read this, in an interview responding to a question on job creation:

The first is to create hiring by such means as long-term care, for which there is long-term, latent demand, and relaxing the issuance of visas to foreigners.

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DIMSDRIVE Research recently reported on a not-so-recent survey into crime prevention, which revealed one surprising statistic, that people are currently tooled up with illegal weapons for self-defence.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 18th of February 2010 7,165 members of the DIMSDRIVE Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.4% of the sample were male, but rather than a breakdown by age there was a breakdown by residence area and type. 4.4% of the sample lived in Hokkaido, 5.2% in Tohoku, 2.5% in Shinchuetsu, 44.9% in Kanto (Tokyo and surrounding area), 10.4% in Tokai, 1.8% in Hokuriku, 17.2% in Kinki (Osaka and surrounding area), 4.2% in Chugoku, 2.2% in Shikoku, and 7.2% in Kyushu and Okinawa. Next, 37.3% lived in a big city, 24.6% in regional towns, 17.5% in the countryside around a big city, 20.0% in the regional countryside, and 0.6% elsewhere. 48.0% were home owners, 3.9% in rental homes, 16.5% owned an apartment, 30.0% rented one, and 1.6% lived elsewhere.

I’m really surprised about the one in eight who want to use bugging device detectors – I’d like to know more about the demographic. Is it single women in rented accomodation, people worrying their family members are spying on them, or just a general paranoia? Furthermore, 11.5% want to carry pepper spray or tear gas, 7.3% a taser, and 5.1% some form of night stick, all three of which are illegal to use, and probably even just carrying them is likely to fall foul of the law. By the way, this is a colour ball.

I’ve personally never had any worries about personal safety in Japan from a crime perspective, and the only preventative measure I take is to turn on the built-in alarm system whenever I leave the flat.
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A recent survey from iShare took a look at paying back lump sums on home loans, and found out, as usual, some interesting opinions.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 29th of July 2010 1,487 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All the respondents had a home loan in either their own or their spouse’s name. 73.8% of the sample were male, 2.9% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, and 67.0% in their forties.

Note than in Japan as far as I am aware the only form of home loan is a repayment mortgage. Despite endowment-type life insurance and hospital fee policies being popular, as far as I am aware there are no endowment loans, nor pension loans or other interesting but more risky methods. I did however see a loan advertised on the back of a newspaper in the train saying something like paying an extra 10% up front then absolutely zero interest for the 15 year duration of the loan!

You can see immediately from the demographics that few people in their twenties appear to have home loans, a surprising figure to me. In Q5, the reluctance to have loans is also a surprise; in the UK a mortgage is a fact of life, and car loans are also rather common. I’d like to see a survey delving further into the Japanese way of looking at lending.

My home loan is for a scary length with a scary amount of cash to pay back – I had hoped that What Japan Thinks and the rest of my empire would help out accelerate the repayment schedule, but sadly that hasn’t quite gone to plan…
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Not having smoked, I cannot really relate to the answers in this survey from DIMSDRIVE Reseach into smoking and non-smoking, but I do have experience of quitting alcohol (well, at least going from a daily habit to once in a blue moon) with cold turkey and lots of water only.

Demographics

Between the 25th of November and the 10th of December 2009 (the reporting is rather slow!) 9,638 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.3% of the sample were male, 11.5% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, 31.3% in their forties, 16.7% in their fifties, and 7.7% aged sixty or older. In addition, 64.0% were married, and 52.4% of the total sample had children.

Q1B at a first look appears to be contradictory to common sense, with men with children more likely to smoke than those with no children, but for women the position is reversed. However, for men this is probably explained by smokers being older, with the non-smoking message getting through to the younger generation who are in turn less likely to have had children yet. For women, the opposite trend is present – the younger generation is smoking more, plus of course as in Q7, getting pregnant or having children is an incentive for women to quit.
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Japan has one of the lowest rates of autopsies in the developed world, with a mere one in ten deaths resulting in one, so to find out more about people’s opinions this survey by the Cabinet Office Japan took a look at the prevention of overlooking suspicious deaths.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of July 2010 3,000 members of the public over the age of twenty selected at random from residency registers were approached for face-to-face interviews. Of the 3,000, 1,913 or 63.8% were successfully interviewed. However, no demographic information was given, although as with all Cabinet Office Japan surveys, they tend to attract much older people than the usual internet-based questionnaires.

I think it’s fair enough to assume that the police are relatively happy with the current state of affairs – writing things off as suicides (if you’re going to push someone off a building, take their shoes off first and line them up neatly afterwards) or accidental deaths keeps the crime rate and the paperwork down, but having said that, I feel that even if they did do more autopsies the Japan murder rate would still be one of the lowest in the world.

Note that as described in the text for Q2, the word that translates to “autopsy” means just an external examination. A further word in Q4 also translates to “autopsy”, but is further defined as the disection kind of forensic autopsy, the kind that most English speakers will associate with the word “autopsy”.
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A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at chemical substances in the immediate environment found that, as is the case in English, “chemical substances” is a scary word, despite of course everything being made out of chemical substances, and there’s dangerous natural chemical substances and perfectly safe man-made ones as well as vice versa.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 27th of June 2010 3,000 members of the general public aged twenty or older selected at random from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,942 peope, or 64.7%, completed the interviews; the non-interviewed included 383 refusals, 367 not in at the time, 118 had moved, 74 people were away from the home for a long period of time, 48 addresses were unclear, and 68 people were not available for other reasons. 51.4% of the sample were female, 8.8% in their twenties, 14.3% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, 24.1% in their sixties, and 16.5% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 14.4% only completed elementary or middle school, 44.0% high school, 41.1% had attended or were currently attending university, and 0.5% didn’t answer.

Note that in Q8, since this survey is conducted face-to-face, and older people are more heavily-represented since there is more chance of finding them at home (although sometimes not quite able to answer questions…), the internet appears relatively low in the list.
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A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at chemical substances in the immediate environment found that, as is the case in English, “chemical substances” is a scary word, despite of course everything being made out of chemical substances, and there’s dangerous natural chemical substances and perfectly safe man-made ones as well as vice versa.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 27th of June 2010 3,000 members of the general public aged twenty or older selected at random from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,942 peope, or 64.7%, completed the interviews; the non-interviewed included 383 refusals, 367 not in at the time, 118 had moved, 74 people were away from the home for a long period of time, 48 addresses were unclear, and 68 people were not available for other reasons. 51.4% of the sample were female, 8.8% in their twenties, 14.3% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, 24.1% in their sixties, and 16.5% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 14.4% only completed elementary or middle school, 44.0% high school, 41.1% had attended or were currently attending university, and 0.5% didn’t answer.

Looking at Q5, I’d have loved to have seen people asked about how much they worried about dihydrogen monoxide, an ingredient in almost all functional energy drinks that many Japanese use to keep them going while working long hours yet announcing its presence in ingredient lists is not regulated by the Japanese government! Furthermore, many Japanese mix it with the legal high hydroxyethane after hours, leading to further cravings for dihydrogen monoxide the next day. BAN THIS ACCURSED CHEMICAL NOW!
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According to recent guidance from the World Health Organisation, they would like member states to limit alcohol promotions, so in Japan the all-too-common nomihodai – all you can drink may very well be in their sights. To find out what the average Japanese person thought of this, iShare conducted a survey into the subject of banning them.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of July 2010 441 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.3% of the sample were male, 29.0% in their twenties, 32.9% in their thirties, and 38.1% in their forties.

The usual nomihodai is when you go out for a course meal as a group. An average work outing will be between 2,000 and 5,000 yen for food only, then an all you can drink on top of 1,000 to 2,000 yen. The menu will be quite varied, soft drinks, one or two types of beer, various fruity chu-hai alcopops and other cocktails, a number of types of sake, and whisky, usually with a two-hour limit to match the food. I’ve never seen hot tea or coffee though, now I think about it.

I don’t think many people really abuse it, although Japan has got more of a drinking problem than it wishes to admit to, I think. I’d target effort more towards the cheap gut-rot spirits and the even cheaper supermarket own-brand alcopops that are about five times cheaper per unit than the mainstream beer brands and under the 40p per unit minimum price that the Scottish government is probably going to recommend.
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A recent survey from Yahoo! Japan Value Insight (who seem to have been bought out by Macromill Research) looked at generational differences in thinking for four key generations.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23th of June 2010 800 members of the Yahoo! monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All the respondents lived in Tokyo or one of the three surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. The four generations were the Bubble generation, people born between 1962 and 1967 and now aged 43 to 48; the Ice Age generation, people born between 1971 and 1975 and now aged 35 to 39; the Yutori (education with breathing space) generation, people born between 1985 and 1990 and now aged 20 to 25; and the Bubble Junior generation, people born between 1992 and 1995 and now aged 15 to 18. For each generation 100 males and 100 females responded.

It’s difficult to draw any conclusions, I feel, from this one snapshot in time. How much of the variation is just down to simple age differences and how much is down to the environment people grew up in? For instance, it’s obvious that younger people would be more keen on having a portable audio player.
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iShare, in conjunction with SBI Card, recently conducted a very detailed look at splitting the bill on dates

Demographics

Between the 13th and 15th of July 2010 1,148 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 69.3% of the sample were male, 26.1% in their twenties, 42.6% in their thirties, and 31.3% in their forties.

I’m very definitely in the stingy class, although I do much prefer to call it canniness. I think I paid all on my first date with the wife, but after that, even on the first proper date, I suggested we split the bill, which didn’t go down too well… I believe it is standard in the UK and the US to split the bill as paying all suggests that the man might have ulterior motives, although as you can see from that survey, footing the bill does not appear on the list.
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