世論 What Japan Thinks

With Father’s Day on the horizon, iShare took a very detailed look at fathers at home.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of May 2010 450 male members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All were married with children, and with a salary of 3 million yen or more. 80.0% were in their forties, and 20.0% were in their fifties. Note that this is the first survey I can remember from iShare that included anyone in their fifties.

Oyaji is a slighly insulting or self-deprecating term to refer to a middle-aged man, in particular ones with a middle-aged outlook or appearance. Or smell…

It’s perhaps not surprising that over half the participants have some complaint or other about their home life. Personally, I don’t have any complaints of sufficient note to register in Q1, and any lingering feelings I might have are easily dispelled by the relief of getting away from the office!
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With tomorrow being Mothers Day in Japan, here’s an interesting look by iShare at issues relating to Mothers Day.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of April 2010 468 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.0% of the sample were male, 29.9% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, and 37.0% in their forties.

I never had a period of hating my mother, and I’m not just saying that because I know she reads my blog! However, I’ve never bought her a Mothers Day present as she doesn’t believe in that sort of thing, although I did once send her a bunch of flowers that I won in a Mothers Day promotion at a supermarket. The wife makes sure her mother gets a present every year, and this year was an alpaca cushion with a cherry blossom pot-pouri in its bum…
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It is the tradition that the wife manages the family budget, and that the husband merely gets a pocket money allowance, but this recent survey from iShare looked at the current situation regarding money management.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of April 2010 1,275 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.3% of the sample were male, 31.1% were in their twenties, 33.5% in their thirties, and 35.2% in their forties.

I was watching a program on general money-related advice a couple of days ago, and they said that actually not giving the husband an allowance is better, or if there is an allowance, make it a percentage of salary (including bonus!) as an incentive. To illustrate the point, they interviewed a few people on the street and the guys with allowances were asked what they did when their pocket money ran out. The answers broadcast included buying stuff with credit card instead (presumably the wife didn’t check receipts) or borrowing money from their parents!
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This recent survey from Media Interative (iResearch), reported on by japan.internet.com, into pirates uncovered quite surprising data on purchased pirate plunder.

Demographics

Over the 13th and 14th of April 2010 1,000 internet users (there was no information on how the sample was chosen) who knew what piracy was completed a survey. 55.3% of the sample were male, 1.0% in their teens, 16.1% in their twetnies, 27.1% in their thirties, 30.9% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, and 7.8% in their sixties.

In a previous survey on a similar topic, pirate laser disk featured prominently in the survey, so I wonder if that falls under the definition of “record”, not just implying vinyl. I’ve personally never heard of pirate vinyl!

With the internet these days, actually buying stuff seems such a quaint idea, although I am surprised to see that game software is relatively low, as the barrier to dowmloading and burning a CD or using a hacked ROM card seems rather high.

I presume that fake brand items fall outside the pirate category for this survey, which seems to be concentrating on media.
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A recent survey from iShare took a look at two things that affect me too, stress and sleep.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 25th of March 2010 515 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.9% of the sample were male, 30.1% in their twenties, 34.6% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

My stress is probably somewhere around level 3 or 4, depending on how much of a pain in the backside my boss is being… However, I do suffer from utter exhaustion just about every day, but sleeping in after my alarm is a very, very rare occurance, given how irritatingly loud it is!
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goo Ranking took a look at what people thought it was best to get over and done with during one’s school days.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of February 2010 1,123 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the sample were female, 9.6% in their teens, 22.2% in their twenties, 32.1% in their thirties, 24.9% in their forties, 7.5% in their fifties, and 3.8% 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.

The part-time job is a useful thing to get over and done with at school – I have many interesting memories from working at a petrol station many weekends during school then over the holidays when I was in university.

Going on a foreign holiday is an odd one, but I wonder if that implies a back-packing or other independant travel, unlike the group travel (or no travel at all) that many Japanese tend towards as they get older.
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This rather short survey from goo Ranking, in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into staggering long holidays (certainly not staggeringly-long holidays!) found quite a surprising (to me at least) amount of opposition to spreading the two annual five-day spring and autumn holidays across a number of weeks so that different regions of the country are on holiday at different times.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of March 2010 1,060 members of the goo Research monitor aged 20 or older completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Further demographics information was not provided.

I’m all for the idea as currently everything is so busy for one week, with traffic jams and airlines, hotels etc charging a premium just because they, so I just end up staying at home.

As with a lot of these surveys, I cannot really figure out the mindset of these people who oppose the idea.

Note that I suspect that the don’t knows and can’t says have been eliminated from the below results.
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A recent survey from iShare looked into the distance between men and women in relationships. The title is not very exciting, but as is often the case for iShare, the questions and results were both thought-provoking.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of March 2010 901 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.8% of the sample were male, 29.6% in their twenties, 33.2% in their thirties, and 37.2% in their forties.

For me, I’d be level 3 for Q1, L4 for Q2, L5 for Q3 and Q4, L3 for Q5 and L4 for Q6.

I’d like to say that women should drive on daates as I do get a bit fed up not being able to look at the scenery!
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I read recently that part of the new citizenship requirements for the UK is learning how to queue, so judging by this survey into queue-jumping from iShare, similar lessons may be needed in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 27th of January and 1st of February 2010 550 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were male, 30.2% in their twenties, 34.5% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

I’m too timid to scold queue-jumpers, although it is something I very rarely see in Japan. I once accidentally jumped a queue at a hospital and got shoved out by someone behind me…
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I’ve previously looked at loud phone calls on the train, but this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com found that many were annoyed by quiet phone calls too in this survey into train manners.

Demographics

Betweem the 10th and 12th of February 2010 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I actually find quieter phone conversations more annoying, as people seem to make less effort to cut the conversation short, but instead imagine cupping their hands over their mouth masks the noise.

If I rode with other foreigners what I really want to do is to point at the person and talk in English about how bad mannered the person is, but as I don’t I have to make do with scowling at them.
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