世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Between the 18th of January and the 4th of February the Cabinet Office Japan conducted a survey into what people thought about society.

Demographics

10,000 people were selected randomly from all Japanese citizens aged 20 or older for face-to-face interviews. 5,585 people were available and agreed to take part. 54.5% of the sample was female, 7.9% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, 20.8% in their sixties, 15.4% in their seventies, and 4.8% aged 80 or older. 74.6% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% never married.

This first part is rather depressing, as can be seen in Q4 and Q5 where people see the darker side of society much more clearly, although this can be offset by the personal society-oriented opinions expressed in the earlier questions. I’m not sure exactly what Q6A and Q6B are saying. Successful people, on the whole, get there due to effort, but perhaps “successful” here refers to people who inherit rather than work for their wealth, such as many politicians or ex-politicians who land cushy jobs on retirement due to the practise of amakudari.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following on from Sunday’s survey on people’s hopes and ambitions for ten years hence, this time goo Ranking looked at what expectations people had for society at large in ten years time. As usual, no demographics, bar the fact that the survey was conducted between the 22nd and 24th of February.

This set of results has the cure for cancer that I was disappointed not to see in the previous survey, but I suppose it could be classed more as a discovery than as an invention? I note, however, that resolution of North Korean issues, be it kidnapping or just general problems stemming from having a loony at the helm, does not feature in the list. I wonder if people expect it to be resolved much quicker than the 10 years asked about here?
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part three and four looked at what food means to people, and what their thoughts are about food in the future. In Q5 of part three I was a bit disappointed to see there was no information about frequency of getting children to participate. I have the impression that male children especially did basically nothing to help around the house.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part two looked at how fathers interacted with their families regarding mealtimes. Sadly there is no data on why over two in five men make little or no effort to eat at home.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part one looked at eating habits. I found the drinking habits interesting; note that only 7% of drinkers do not drink with their evening meal.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Japanese baby boomers due to start reaching the mandatory retirement age from this April, MyVoice performed a timely survey over the first five days of February looking at this very issue of the baby boom generation.

Demographics

13,304 members of MyVoice’s online community successfully completed a private internet-based survey. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% aged fifty or older.

Japan’s baby boom generation are those born in the immediate post-war times from 1947 to 1949, or 昭和, Showa, 22 to 24 when counting by the Japanese imperial reign-based calendar system.

I must admit to general ignorance on what problems exactly the mass retirement will have, except for accelerating the increase in pensioners, and therefore increasing the amount of money the government needs from me to keep the OAPs in bingo money. I suppose that in itself is as big a problem as it gets, although another reason I’ve heard about from the press is that Japan will lose the generation that made Japan what it is today, although I personally don’t see that as a problem.
Read the rest of this entry »

Over the first five days at the start of February, MyVoice asked their online monitor group about earthquakes.

Demographics

13,145 people successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

I’ve not (yet..) experienced a destructive earthquake, although living in the Kansai area I’ve heard lots of stories of the hardships resulting from the Great Hanshin-Akashi Earthquake of 1995. I’ve also visited the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (earthquake museum) in Kobe which has an extremely powerful recreation of the scenes during and after the earthquake. There is also a reference library there, which includes maps of all the active faults in Japan – the chances are probably rather high that your home too may be sitting rather close to a fault line. They also have survivors of the earthquake presenting various earthquake-related issues, from describing ground liquification to discussing emergency evacuation kit preparation, with translators on-hand to help out if need be.

Since I get a bit of traffic searching for it, I think I should explain the Japanese 震度, Shindo earthquake scale. Rather than report the magnitude as the key measure of the strengh of the tremor as in the Richter scale, the Shindo scale is used to present a more subjective, and more useful to the people affected by it, evaluation of the effects of the quake. The Shindo measures how one might actually experience the shake. 1 or 2 are barely perceptable wobbles, 3 is dishes rattling, 4 wakes you up and some things might dance off tabletops (this is about as high as I’ve experienced), 5弱, jaku, lower is books popping out of shelves, most things falling over, and perhaps a few cracks in cheaply built houses, 5強, kyou, upper is televisions and wardrobes (and perhaps you too) toppling, deformed doors and structural damage, 6弱, jaku, lower is dancing bookcases, 6強, kyou, upper is nearly everything breaking and falling over, and finally 7 is OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently published the results of a survey conducted amongst a slightly different population from usual, that of elementary school children, on the subject of what they do after school. The fieldwork was conducted over two weeks from the 24th of October to the 7th of November last year, with respondents gathered via a public web-based survey from users of the primary school children-targeted portal site kids goo. There is no mention of parental involvement in the data collection. I presented another survey last year on a similar topic, but that time it was the parents interviewed regarding their children and their extra-curricular lessons.

Demographics

1,500 children completed the survey successfully. 60.1% were girls, 2.9% were in the first year of elementary school (age 6 or 7), 5.5% in second year, 13.7% in third year, 22.9% in forth year, 27.7% in fifth year, and 27.4% in sixth year.

The most surprising thing to me is probably Q2, with not more than 3% met at the school gates by their parents. This to me is a great figure, as it indicates the relative low level of parental paranoia in the country, and of course the lack of cars associated with the school run is good for the environment.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the matter of university lectures being made publicly available, or OpenCourseWare to use the term coined to describe this phemonenom, pioneered in the USA by MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. In Japan there is the Japan Opencourseware Consortium, JOCW, based at Keio University, who have their own OpenCourseWare, including a small English section.

Demographics

The fieldwork was conducted between the 13th and 19th of December last year, with 1,050 people from their monitor group successfully completing a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, 19.8% in their teens, 20.1% in their twenties, 19.5% in their thirties, 20.2% in their forties, and 20.4% aged fifty or older. Educationally, 6.1% had only completed middle school (although some of the teenage sample may not have finished high school yet), 26.8% graduated from high school, 8.8% vocational schools, 1.6% 高専 college (this type of college is seems to be a variant of vocational schooling?), 11.3% junior (two-year) college, 26.2% university arts course, 13.1% university science, 1.6% university medical or pharmacy, 3.4% post-graduate or business schools, 0.5% overseas university or post-graduate, and 0.6% other.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently released a survey into people’s thoughts about public safety in Japan. 3,000 people aged 20 or older were chosen by random, and between the 14th and 24th of December 1,795 of them, or 59.8%, took part in face-to-face interviews. Of those who did not participate, 124 had moved, 79 were on long-term absenses from home, 365 were not at home, 58 could not be found, 514 refused to participate, and 65 did not take part for other reasons. Demographically, 54.1% were female, 8.9% between 20 and 29, 15.0% between 30 and 39, 16.9% between 40 and 49, 21.9% between 50 and 59, 20.7% between 60 and 69, and 16.7% aged 70 or older.

The “gaijin hanzai” comment is related to the uproar regarding of widespread availability of a magazine playing on precisely the fears expressed in this survey.

I was surprised by the results in Q11 – my sterotypical image of the Japanese is that on the whole they would tend to help the police to the best of their efforts, but we see that they have reservations, especially if the crime is a relatively minor one that doesn’t involve family or friends.
Read the rest of this entry »