世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

Over a week at the end of August and the start of September, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at movie theatre attendance. 5,180 member of their online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey. 43.1% were male, 1.2% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, 26.9% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or over.

I found the infrequency of cinema visits in Q1 rather surprising, with over two in five visiting once every sixth months or less and another one in five not having visited at all in recent years, but sadly there is no follow-up questions to find out why they don’t visit more often. Given that in Q4 46.0% use Ladies’ Day discounts (usually 1,000 yen instead of the standard 1,800 yen price), and since there were 56.9% female respondents, that means that just over four in five women use these discount. Since about half often buy popcorn and a drink, both of which have high markups, perhaps more Men’s Days or better still Couples Days would get more bums on seats and better profits. However, Q4SQ suggests that guaranteeing a seat ahead of time is a key requirement, but one usually cannot reserve seats at Ladies’ Day prices, so perhaps allowing reservations on these days is a way forward. However, if people turn up at the cinema and find no seats leftfor their favourite film, they may often choose another one since they’ve come all the way to the cinema, so if seat availability could be checked from home they’d actually have less custom.
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In the middle of September, DIMSDRIVE Research surveyed its monitor pool to find out what they thought regarding the falling birth rate. 7,656 people successfully completed the survey. 42.6% were male, 1.0% in their teens, 16.0% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 12.9% in their fifties, and 5.2% aged sixty or older. Sadly there is no information regarding marital status.

I think that the lack of children is the biggest problem facing Japan, and one that needs to be tackled soon before it is too late. While of course Japan is overcrowded and in theory there is nothing wrong with a few less people around, the problem is that the whole population is aging and soon tax from full-time workers will be insufficient to cover pensions.

My own workplace does have decent support for both men and women; both can have up to three years (if I remember correctly) sabbatical for child-raising, and I know of a few women who have taken advantage of this, but as for men, well, for example a colleague’s wife gave birth and he took one whole day off for the day she got out of hospital. “Luckily” the baby was born on a public holiday, but I don’t think he has even decreased his usual working hours (by that I mean four hours overtime a night) since she got out of hospital.
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As part of DIMSDRIVE Research’s 92nd Ranking Survey, towards the end of August they asked members of their internet monitor group which habits they want to break, but just can’t manage to. They got 5,595 responses, with 2,874, or 51.4% of the sample male.

This is a slightly higher male to female ratio than usual for DIMSDRIVE, so perhaps that suggests men have more bad habits?

I’d love to see a survey on what habits foreigners wish Japanese would quit! I’d put slurping noodles and sniffing rather than blowing one’s nose at the top of the list.
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Over a week in the middle of July DIMSDRIVE Research look at that Japanese staple, tofu. They interviewed 4,171 members of their internet monitor group by means of a private questionnaire; 65.0% of the respondents were female, 1.7% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 7.6% aged sixty or older.

Tofu (and soy beans in general) is just about my favourite Japanese food, and I recommend everyone to try a posh tofu restaurant at least once, even if you, like AA Gill of the Times, believe it to be no more than “congealed river scum”. Recently, I’ve not eaten it as much I usually do, although I still have some two to four days a week, it’s abura-age or Koya-dofu, not the plain block tofu.

Also, this weekend I had a wonderful tofu lunch at Seed’s Kitchen in Takarazuka (I should ask them for a discount for this free advert!). As pictured down towards the bottom of that page, it features seven different styles of tofu and rice with black soya beans for just 1200 yen.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from my earlier post regarding a survey on smoking by goo Research, I now present a translation of a related opinion poll from DIMSDRIVE Research on smoking manners. In mid-June they interviewed 8,273 people from their internet monitor group. 56.8% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 36.2% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.3% aged sixty or over; average age was 42.2 years old for men, 36.6 years old for women. As further demographic information they also published the occupations of the sample; 2.1% were company director level, 37.3% were ordinary full-time employees, 6.3% self-employed, 11.9% in part-time or casual labour, 3.2% worked for local or national government, 2.4% were freelancers, 24.5% housewives, 3.6% students, 1.0% retired, 4.8% unemployed, and 2.9% in others jobs.

This part of the survey focuses on manners; one of the many things that annoys me is how Japan Tobacco get around the ban on advertising smoking products by instead having a smoking manners campaign instead; be sure to check out the full gallery there! I think any resident of Japan would tell you that it seems that far less than the percentages mentioned in Q8, for instance, actually carry out these points of etiquette. I’m also very suprised by throwing away cigarette ends being seen as bad manners by many more non-smokers than lighting up in non-smoking areas!
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from my earlier post regarding a survey on smoking by goo Research, I now present a translation of a related opinion poll from DIMSDRIVE Research on smoking manners. In mid-June they interviewed 8,273 people from their internet monitor group. 56.8% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 36.2% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.3% aged sixty or over; average age was 42.2 years old for men, 36.6 years old for women. As further demographic information they also published the occupations of the sample; 2.1% were company director level, 37.3% were ordinary full-time employees, 6.3% self-employed, 11.9% in part-time or casual labour, 3.2% worked for local or national government, 2.4% were freelancers, 24.5% housewives, 3.6% students, 1.0% retired, 4.8% unemployed, and 2.9% in others jobs.

One important thing to note when reading these figures is that men tend to be much more likely (almost twice as likely) to smoke, and tend to smoke more, so be wary of quoting these figures directly. If you are interested in that breakdown, either refer to the original survey or ask me and I’ll do a translation of every last statistic.
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As another part of their 91st Ranking Research, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at what people thought was the cause of their bad eyesight. We’ve seen previously how most Japanese wear glasses, so let’s have a look at why they do. No, that reason was not included in the answers! They interviewed 4,347 people (perhaps all thought their eyesight was bad) from their internet monitor group over a period of a week in the middle of August.

The main reason my eyes are wonky, I suspect, is as a child I spent a lot of time staring at the sun.
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As part of DIMSDRIVE Research’s 91st Ranking Research, they published the result of a survey into which inventor to thank for the world today. They surveyed 6,008 people from their monitor pool over six days in mid-August. It might be interesting to cross-reference this post with a previous ranking survey on the top company founders or presidents.
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As part of DIMSDRIVE’s 89th Ranking Research they enquired into people’s views on women-only carriages in trains. They asked three questions to women and one to men.

Compared to other bad manners in and around trains, the women-only carriage regulations are surprisingly well-respected, at least on the lines I have frequented, with it being a relatively rare sight to see a man riding on them, even during the rush-hour peak, considering the number who ignore other regulations such as the no mobiles or no talking on the phone signs, or who smoke outside the designated areas.

Also please note that in Q1 the usage may seem to be low, but if one rides outside of peak rush hours, the trains tend to be not so overcrowded so the risk of getting groped is lower, so the figures here should not be taken simply at face value.

There is also a news report from the Mainichi Shimbun via Japan Probe about how groping is down overall in Tokyo, but up on lines with recently-introduced or expanded women-only carriage services.
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The headline may very well be true, but as part of DIMSDRIVE’s 90th Research Ranking survey, they asked people what they thought the best free things in life were.

I have to pretty much agree with the rankings below; the mottainai part of me wants to disagree with the supermarket carrier bag option, but they always get reused at home as rubbish bags.

One might think that libraries are rather low in the list for a country that seems to like reading so much; perhaps two reasons are that many people buy their paperbacks either new or used, and that libraries don’t tend to stock much manga!

I think the “free newspapers” and “coupon magazines” have a lot of overlap as many free newspapers have coupons as a major part, and the quality of the articles leave a lot to be desired, but there are some exceptions, of course. Not that I’m biased for them plugging me, oh no…
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