世論 What Japan Thinks

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

In September of this year, the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll, interviewing 1,896 people, 55% female regarding attitudes towards environmental issues. This rather lengthy survey will be split over three days. Note that only 14% sell unwanted goods – sodai gomi day is legendardy for finding discarded treasure! Last time I was in Germany I was charged 30 cents (42 yen or so) for a high quality reusable plastic bag at Spar, but the Japanese seem prepared to pay only as much as 5 yen, but perhaps they are picturing paying for the current cheap thin bags?

Q9: Do you usually endeavour to reuse and recycle? Which of the following do you try to do? (Multiple answer)

Thoroughly separate and categorise rubbish before throwing it out	82.2%
To make things easier to recycle, wash bottles, etc before disposal	63.9%
Use unneeded goods for another purpose, such as using old clothers as dusters or cloths	41.9%
Buy goods in reusable containers, like milk in bottles	17.0%
Actively purchase goods made from recycled materials	15.7%
Sell unneeded goods at second-hand shop, bazaar, fleamarket, etc	13.9%
Use old products rather than buying new ones	7.1%
Other	0.3%
Nothing in particular	6.1%
Don’t know	0.3%

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

In September of this year, the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll, interviewing 1,896 people, 55% female regarding attitudes towards environmental issues. This rather lengthy survey will be split over three days. Note that the high degree of recycling of packaging and sorting rubbish is due in part to many municipalities implementing separated rubbish collection and part to most stations, convenience stores, etc, having separate bins prominently positioned. The overall feeling I get from the answers is that people do put a little bit of effort into environmental protection at a personal level, but the motivation seems to be as much just saving money as any other more altruistic goal.

Q1: In your daily lifestyle, which of the following environmental protection activities do you make effort to do? (Multiple answer)

Recycle paper, milk packs, PET bottles, cans, etc, and dispose of rubbish separately	73.4%
Don’t pour oil and food scraps down the drain	56.9%
Try not to set air conditioner too low or heater too high	50.9%
Save electricity and water, and use low energy products	46.3%
Reduce rubbish as much as possible	45.0%
As much as possible, avoid buying single-use items.	28.0%
Buy recycled paper-based and other kind to the environment products	27.0%
Try to prevent creation of noise pollution	26.7%
Don’t take a plastic bag from the shop when shopping	23.2%
Other	0.3%
Nothing in particular	7.2%
Don’t know	0.2%

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I obtained some figures of international marriage in Japan, which I shall summarise here, giving the historical trends from 1985 to 2003. The exact source of this statistical data is unclear, but presumably from some government agency.

UPDATE: I found the source, an Excel sheet on the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare web site.

	1985	1990	1995	2000	2001	2002	2003
All couples	735,850	722,138	791,888	798,138	799,999	757,331	740,191
Husband and wife both Japanese	723,669	696,512	764,161	761,875	760,272	721,452	704,152
Either foreigner	12,181	25,626	27,727	36,263	39,727	35,879	36,039
Husband Japanese, wife foreign	7,738	20,026	20,787	28,326	31,972	27,957	27,881
Wife Japanese, husband foreign	4,443	5,600	6,940	7,937	7,755	7,922	8,158

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MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll amongst the 12,311 members of their internet community, of whom 57% were female, to find out their opinions about keeping pets. Given that most of the pet shops I see seem to be 80% dogs and dog-related items, I’m very suprised to see that cats are scoring so highly! Perhaps it’s just that cats are easier to obtain from friends than dogs?

Q1: Do you currently keep a pet at home?

Yes	39.3%
Plan to get one in the near future	0.9%
I want to keep one sometime	18.6%
I’ve no plan to get one	41.2%

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ITMedia reported that Push To Talk, the new service being geared up for launch right now by DoCoMo in their new 902i range, is still completely unknown to almost four in five mobile phone users. Push To Talk is a walkie-talkie-like service, just press the button and talk, sending your voice over the IP network, so it is VoIP rather than a traditional call. However, their pricing is currently set to a rather high 5 yen per push, or a more reasonable 1,000 yen per month for unlimited access. But, as we will see later, less than a quarter of mobile phone users spend more than three minutes per day talking, and only just over a tenth feel they don’t talk enough.

Infoplant just released a survey (not yet available on their web site – it seems to have been done for “Keitai Best” magazine) carried out at the end of October amongst just 400 internet users (200 of each sex) aged 15 and above who owned mobile phones. (Presumably they used their internet monitor group and chose a demographically accurate cross-section, so the figures can be trusted.)

First, regarding Push To Talk, not even 10% were familiar with the features of the service, and just under 80% had not even heard of the term. However, when the main features were explained, about 60% said they would like to use it, with the number of women wanting to use it being 9 percentage points higher.

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infoPLANT performed a survey regarding the purchase and ownership of hard disk-based portable audio players. Not too suprisingly, along with Apple, Sony came out rather well. I always find the huge positive image of Sony rather depressing, as outside the PSP and PS2, most of their stuff is pretty much average quality or worse (and I’ve heard the PSP and PS2s aren’t much better) and overpriced, yet everyone loves them. Not that this is purely a Japanese trait – even the tough crowd over in Slashdot give Sony an easy time on the whole, regardless of Sony’s embrace of DRM, closed systems, and the recent rootkit fiasco.

infoPLANT surveyed 8,615 people, 35.5% male, over one week at the start of October. The respondents to the survey were self-selecting, choosing to fill in a questionnaire presented within the iMode menu system.

Q1: Do you have a hard disk-based portable audio player? (Sample size=8,615)

Yes	15.4%
No	84.6%

For males, three in ten teenagers have them, decreasing to less than one in ten for those over fifty, but for females, over one in five of the over-fifties sample owned one, exceeding the teenagers in second place by 0.2%! The sample in their thirties had the lowest ownership figures, with only 11.5% owning one. The reason for this interesting data is not mentioned.
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DIMSDRIVE Research conducted an opinion poll amongst 6,416 members (39.9% male) of the their internet monitor group about their attitudes to outer space tourism. Having solved the food problem for the third who worry about eating in space, perhaps next the ISS engineers need to address the lack of a washlet in the inflight loo?

Q1: Do you think you want to travel into outer space? (Sample size=6,416)

Definitely want to go	33.7%
Somewhat want to go	33.8%
Don’t really want to go	15.0%
Don’t want to go at all	14.4%
Don’t know	3.1%

On average, men were 10 percentage points more likely to definitely want to go, but the older both sexes got, the less keen they were.

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Despite being a nominally Buddhist and/or Shinto nation, Japan has warmly embraced the Western secular spending spree festival we call Xmas, as well as retaining its traditional New Year shrine and/or temple visiting superstition.

MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll of 15,572 members of its internet community at the start of this year to see how they spent the 2004-2005 holiday season. The survey participants were 46% male, and over a third in their thirties.

Q1: How did you spend the New Year? (Multiple answer)

Spent with family	79%
Hatsumode (visit to temple)	40%
Gathered with relatives	25%
New Year greetings	23%
Went back to family home	21%
Ate out	17%
New Year sales	17%
Bought a lucky bag	13%
Went to film, theatre, concert, theme park, etc	6%
Went to play at friend’s house	6%
Domestic travel	5%
Overseas travel	1%
Other	7%
No answer	0.03%

Note that the 40% is low according to other polls, but Hatsumode does not officially finish until the 7th of January, after the end of the polling dates, and unofficially people will continue to perform what they consider to be Hatsumode until perhaps the end of January.
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Last December, MyVoice carried out a survey about brushing teeth. In Japan, dentist skill, and dental hygiene, or lack thereof, is often a subject of ridicule by the foreign contingent, but I seem to have been lucky and found a very good dentist. Actually, if it hadn’t been for my Japanese dentist and all the work he did (yes, I have British teeth) I don’t think I’d have had the confidence to meet my wife.

They sought the opinion 16,013 people via a web-based survey from the internet community “MyVoice”, of whom 42% were male, and found, amongst other things, that not many people at all attend regular check-ups.

Q1: Each day, how many times do you normally brush your teeth?

Don’t usually do so	1%
Once	25%
Twice	53%
Thrice	19%
Four or more times	2%

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[ part 1 | part 2 | part 3 ]

Continuing on from part two, the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (that seems to be the official title anyway), conducted a wide-ranging survey regarding the people of Japan’s everyday life. This is rather a large survey, so it will be published in three parts on subsequent days. 6,924 people participated in the poll, conducted by face-to-face interviews in various areas throughout Japan. In this section, many Japanese say they want to live away from their children in their old age, and work is defined by salary.

Q13: In your opinion, normally with whom and how is the best way to live in old age?

Live with son (and wife if applicable)	15.1%
Live near son (and wife if applicable)	8.7%
Live with daughter (and husband if applicable)	5.7%
Live near daughter (and husband if applicable)	7.2%
Either son or daughter is best	10.6%
Live separate from children	38.0%
Other	1.8%
Don’t know	12.8%

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