世論 What Japan Thinks

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

In the final part we look at how people meet; for me, I’d definitely be in the “Other” category, as the tale of how I met my wife is perhaps not an unusual method for foreigners (no, I wasn’t her English teacher!), but the circumstances surrounding it were quite interesting. Basically, the timing was perfect for both of us, but if any one thing had happened differently we may never have lasted more than one or two dates; even an earthquake in Portland played a part…
Read the rest of this entry »

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

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

This portion of the survey deals in part with middle-age divorce. This is the phenomenon whereby round about retirement, usually, marriages just break up because of many factors, including the husband now being nothing without work, or the wife no longer having peace and quiet now he’s home all day. This statistic may increase in a couple of years time as there is a change in the law coming through that will allow divorced women to get at their share of the ex-husband’s pension more easily.
Read the rest of this entry »

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

Following up on my recent report into Japanese demographics, in particular the lack of children, here is the results of a survey from the Meiji Yasuda Institute of Life and Wellness, Inc on the views of young Japanese (between the ages of 20 and 39) on marriage, birth and divorce. In February of this year they surveyed 759 people (I think it was by face-to-face interviews, but it is not clear from the survey) from the Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa areas (basically the capital city and surrounding prefectures). As the detailed demographics are important to this survey, I’ll present them within the main text.

This is quite the longest survey I’ve translated for a while, but it is a fascinating set of figures. The sample size is perhaps slightly small, but the processing of the data seems to have been very detailed, so I would place a high degree of trust on these statistics.
Read the rest of this entry »

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

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.

Well, I hope you have found this survey interesting in some way. If you want to learn more about the Japanese government’s views on a gender-equal society, please visit the official English home page of the Gender Equlaity Bureau.

From tomorrow it will be back to more mainstream opinion polls!
Read the rest of this entry »

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

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.
Read the rest of this entry »

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

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.

This is a survey I really don’t want to translate as the figures are rather depressing, but I shall endeavour to make as good a translation as possible as this data is an important record of one aspect of the state of Japanese society. This first part paints quite a bleak picture, especially if you consider that there might be an element of under-reporting. Looking at the raesons why people didn’t discuss their injuries, societal pressure looks quite large as a factor. Domestic violence is, I fear, not a subject that is discussed honestly and openly; in fact, the most recent time I heard about it was in relation to Kaoru Sugita last year, where she was almost boasting about getting drunk and beating up her husband.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office of Japan conducted a survey back in November and December of 2004 to discover what people thought about gender roles in society. Although slightly old, this survey, performed by proper statistical means, should have a high degree of accuracy. They chose 5,000 people for face-to-face interviews, with 3,502 of them consenting to be surveyed.

This is a rather sizeable survey, so the results will be published over two days.

This second half contains a number of rather interesting figures, showing that women seem to be accepting of their fate as housewives.

This was a rather difficult translation job – most of the other surveys just have short and snappy questions and answer options; here there were a few rather tricky sentences that I may have made a mistake or two with…
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office of Japan conducted a survey back in November and December of 2004 to discover what people thought about gender roles in society. Although slightly old, this survey, performed by proper statistical means, should have a high degree of accuracy. They chose 5,000 people for face-to-face interviews, with 3,502 of them consenting to be surveyed.

This is a rather sizeable survey, so the results will be published over two days.

It would be instructive to compare and contrast the results here with a previous report I translated on how women perceive their own roles in the workplace.

Notice that in Q3 the most important thing Japanese think should be does is to change society’s perception, rather than perhaps any legal measures. This option, I suppose, does not force men to change, and thinking back to the previous equal opportunity survey, women are perhaps acknowledging that the equal opportunities laws have not changed anything, so it must be attitudes that should be changed in order for them to see any significant benefit.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s Trivia no Izumi had a viewer writing in asking what was the best way to conduct oneself on Saint Valentine’s Day in order to improve one’s chances of getting chocolate from a woman – remember that in Japan St Valentine’s Day is gifts from women to men only.

First up they asked 500 men what they would do, and got a panel of 100 women to vote on each of the activities to see if they agreed it might improve their chances. Amongst the collected suggestions were talking in a loud voice, working a bit harder or conducting oneself more lively, gelling or otherwise styling one’s hair, and acting cool. Each of these options garnered a mere handful of votes from the female panelists, the best score being an insignificant 7 out of 100, proving that in Japan too, men are from 火星 and women are from 金星 (Mars and Venus, of course; literally the fire and gold planets respectively).

So, taking a different tack, they enlisted the help of four female psychologists to try to find out what they thought men should do. After a three-hour exchange of views, the collected opinion on how men can increase their chance of getting Valentine’s chocolates was simply to leave your bag open by your desk over lunch or other break time, so your secret admirer could silently slip the prezzie in without fear of a confrontation or rejection.

If you hear about a massive increase of thefts from briefcases next week, you know who to blame!