世論 What Japan Thinks

One complaint I often hear from fellow foreigners in Japan is that the cost of having kids is expensive, if not prohibitive, although I often have a suspicion that those saying it have an axe to grind and are inflating costs, much like those Westerners who constantly complain about racist behaviour as if it were a daily occurance. However, perhaps another reason that foreigners find childbirth, or the prospect thereof, a scary prospect is that they are not aware of all the support that local governments provide to parents. With this in mind, perhaps some of my readers with young children will find this survey by goo Research into child medical fees and child-rearing support informative.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 9th of July 2007 1,989 members of goo Research’s online monitor pool with children of middle school or younger ages successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 51.4% of the sample was female, 28.6% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 25.4% in their forties, and 17.0% aged fifty or above.

The biggest help for new parents is a lump sum from the local government on the birth of a child, with the same amount being offered to all parents regardless of income levels, usually 400,000 yen, which is enough to cover most straightforward births. However, it is interesting to note that in Q2 and Q3 about one in six has not heard of and doesn’t plan to take advantage of this money.

My employer also pays a child support allowance, but the value of it barely covers the nappy bill, I would guess!
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One place where mobile phone vendors probably make a reasonable amount of profit is on accessories purchased along with a new phone, as they have the customer already opening their wallet, so pushing a couple of extra bits and bobs onto the punter is a relatively easy sale. To find out how the customer thinks, japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into mobile phone accessories.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of July 2007 1,084 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Looking at Q2, I wonder if there is a possibility that the respondents were confused. I find it rather difficult to believe that less than one in five buy either an AC adaptor or a cradle, or conversely that almost one in five buy a second AC adaptor or cradle, so perhaps there was confusion as to whether or not to indicate that the separately paid for but usually purchased (I suspect) adaptor and cradle were actually to be counted as accessories.
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I haven’t talked about Wikipedia for a while, so here goes with a report from japan.internet.com on the second regular survey from goo Research on Wikipedia. The previous survey was conducted two months ago.

Demogrpahics

Between the 9th and 13th of July 2007 1,045 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample was male, 15.8% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, and 29.0% aged fifty or older.
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I’m personally not convinced that natsu-bate, fatigue brought on by the summer heat, really does exist as a diagnosable illness, or whether it is just another thing the Japanese like to complain about, just like stiff shoulders. Regardless of whether it is real or not, here comes another slighly incongruous double-header from goo Research, conducted in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun, looking at both the upcoming upper house elections and the summer heat.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of June 2007 546 people in their teens to their thirties who were members of the goo Research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. The group was split 50:50 male and female, and 37% attended school or university, 26% were full-time company employees, and 13% were homemakers. More detailed information was not presented.

I’m not particularly surprised by Junichiro Koizumi coming tops of the poll, and Abe barely ranking, but I am surprised by the foreign secretary Taro Aso coming second, but after his recent Alzheimer’s comment, I wonder if he would drop out of the rankings were the survey repeated today.
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I’ve rather given up on fireworks, as there are just too many people attending them these days so it never seems worth the hassle. Sadly, the numbers planning to attend fireworks this year was not reported, but a recent survey by goo Research conducted in conjunction with Metroguide magazine into fireworks displays came up with other interesting data.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 8th of June 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All respondents lived in Tokyo or the surrounding three prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. No sex or age breakdown was reported.

The first year we stayed in my previous flat we had a great view of the Takarazuka fireworks from our balcony, but then they build a tower block right in the way, and although we lived barely 500 metres away from the heart of the party, we never bothered watching or going out. From our new flat, if we stand on chairs on the balcony we can just see parts of the Inagawa fireworks, but other than that, we haven’t been to fireworks for ages, and I don’t feel we’re really missing much.
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I’ve never actually participated in an online auction myself, but the stories I hear about eBay’s security problems and about fraudulent auctions fair put me off wanting to try, despite stories about some people getting lucky. So, I was interested to read a column on japan.internet.com about research conducted by goo Research into the subject of internet auctions.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of July 2007 1,077 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was male, 17.7% in their teens, 18.8% in their twenties, 16.2% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 18.9% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

There is, of course, many sites that specialise in highlighting the tat and other interesting rubbish that people try to flog on online auctions; here are a few of my favourites:

Who would buy that?
What the heck?
hexadecimal – the oddities of eBay motors
Strange Japanese auctions
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With the ubiquity of mobile phones and computers with kanji input abilities, both the need to remember and the opportunities for writing kanji, the Japanese language’s main script, has decreased. In addition, worries about education includes whether children are really learning kanji correctly. Thus, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, conducted a survey into kanji ability.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of May 2007 1,101 randomly selected internet users aged 20 or over (presumably chosen from goo Research’s monitor pool) completed this survey. More detailed demographic information is not available.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m studying for the Kanji Kentei examination in order to up my ability, particularly from the point of view of writing. Reading is relatively easy, and with a computer to aid you, electronic entry is not that bothersome at all, yet even my wife, who was always top of the class in school with kanji, occasionally forgets how to write even relatively common characters and has to resort to an electronic dictionary to crib the correct character from.
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Being just back from my own two-week summer holidays – much to the envy dismay of my co-workers who are, I am sure (I think), really just jealous that I can ignore convention and fly off for a decent holiday – it was interesting to see this recent survey conducted by goo Research into 2007 summer holiday plans for company employees.

Demographics

Towards the end of June 2007 1,080 members of goo Research’s monitor panel aged up to 59 years old and employed in private companies completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Fuller demographic information was not presented.

Depressing statistics, aren’t they?

As another point of reference regarding holidays in Japanese companies, Terrie Lloyd had an interesting article on Japan Today regarding the laws and conventions surrounding holidays.

Also note that most Japanese employees take holidays in the middle of August, around the Obon period, a traditional Japanese holiday.
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I rarely use my mobile phone camera, with just the occassion snapping of a QR Code or the taking of memos of product names or part numbers for when going shopping, but I would find I missed it if it wasn’t there. To find out how others feel, goo Research conducted a survey (reported on by japan.internet.com) on the subject of mobile phone camera.

Demographics

Over the 8th and 9th of June 2007 goo Research interviewed 1,094 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.1% of the sample were male, 17.2% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 17.5% in their forties, 16.8% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older,.

I’m not sure exactly of how many megapixels my mobile’s camera has, but I think it’s somewhere between one and two megapixels, and about 300,000 pixels on the inside camera. However, I wonder how much of the dissatisfaction with the megapixel count comes from setting the image capture size too low then importing the photos to a PC. My camera goes up to 1,280 by 960, but I can only take half a dozen photos before I run out of memory, so I usually use a lower resolution.
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Much as I might have thought that there would be a sizeable geek population who would have a copy of Linux installed somewhere on one of their home machines, especially given the multiple machine ownership data, a recent article published on japan.internet.com regarding a survey conducted by goo Research on the topic of computers at home suggests otherwise.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 17th of June 2007 1,087 members of goo Research’s monitor pool successfully completed an online questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample was male, 17.4% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 17.8% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.9% aged sixty or older.

I’m Windows XP on my one home-brew, and if I were upgrading, the main factors controlling my decision would of course be price, followed by at least one gigabyte of memory and perhaps 150 gigs of hard disk. One gig of RAM – I remember when I was a kid trying to persuade my father to let my brother and I raid our savings to buy a 16K ZX81 wobbly RAM pack for a mere £100.
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