世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently performed a large investigation into HIV and AIDS awareness amongst the Japanese. 38,474 people supplied answers to the questions posted in an open to the public internet-based survey, availiable for a week at the end of November. The demographics were 2.7% 19 or under, 25.4% between 20 and 29, 39.8% from 30 to 39, 22.8% between 40 and 49, 7.2% between 50 and 59, and 2.3% sixty and over.

The second half of the survey sees that there is still a small but perhaps significant minority of those with prejudices against those with HIV and AIDS. There is also a larger minority with some reservations about these matters, but I think that, for instance, there has to be some rational discrimination – obvious ones like disallowing blood transfusions or regulations regarding working in environments where there are the risks of blood contamination are present, such as masks and gloves for food preparation.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently performed a large investigation into HIV and AIDS awareness amongst the Japanese. 38,474 people supplied answers to the questions posted in an open to the public internet-based survey, availiable for a week at the end of November. The demographics were 2.7% 19 or under, 25.4% between 20 and 29, 39.8% from 30 to 39, 22.8% between 40 and 49, 7.2% between 50 and 59, and 2.3% sixty and over.

One of the more interesting results is the figure that almost one in three blame foreigners or Japanese playing around overseas as the reason for the increase in AIDS cases in Japan. This is an important figure to note, as it is an often recited statistic that a big number of Japanese blame foreigners for nasty diseases, an attitude I feel is a bit racist, especially as it usually comes from people who complain about discrimination from the Japanese. Whether or not 31.7% does represent a big number, and from that 31.7% how many are worried about the Japanese playing away from home versus the foreigner contingent, I’ll leave that for others to discuss.

Also of note are the condom usage statistics. Unfortunately, those in monogamous relationships are not listed separately, as that certainly affects usage rate, as does the low rate of usage of The Pill (must find some stats on that!).
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research, along with Yomiuri Weekly, carried out a massive poll amongst working women. For a week at the end of September this year, over 10,000 working women aged 20 and over completed an internet-based questionnaire on their thoughts and opinions. Twenty years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was passed, so this is an investigation into how the position of working women has changed.

This second half of the survey sees working for the government as very popular, but engineering-based companies like Toyota and Sony are in the top three, with NTT and IBM also showing up. Two perhaps softer, more feminine companies, Benesse and Shiseido also do well, and with livedoor in sixth, perhaps its well-known distinctly non-Old Boy president indicates to women that the company may be run in a more welcoming, and dare I say Western, fashion.

Note also that the majority of women have felt sexual discrimination at work, and in particular two in five women have experienced problems in the area of salary, promotion, and work and family life balance.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research, along with Yomiuri Weekly, carried out a massive poll amongst working women. For a week at the end of September this year, over 10,000 working women aged 20 and over completed an internet-based questionnaire on their thoughts and opinions. Twenty years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was passed, so this is an investigation into how the position of working women has changed.

It’s quite a depressing set of figures, I feel. Not just discrimination, but harassment seems endemic amongst firms, and women are so used to it that they perhaps don’t consider the everyday discrimination as abuse. On a more positive note, however, almost half the women want to have the opportunity to have a full career not terminated nor even just punctuated by baby-rearing, although I personally consider that a child during the first three years of life needs one full-time parent.

Note that here almost three in five report being touched up, which is very depressingly high, but sexist language is barely half that, which suggests to me that women on the whole are accepting of, or at least inured to, that sort of behaviour.

I also wonder how much under-reporting has happened – note that in Q1 people report that they were expected to do the woman’s work around the office, yet there seems no specific category for this type of harassment. Also, office parties are notorious for the boss getting drunk (or faking drunk) and pestering his female underlings, but perhaps this is seen as outside the work environment thus not job-related harassment?
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Since it’s nearly the holiday season, let’s look at fun in Japan!

goo Research, in conjunction with NTT Resonace anand Mitsubishi Research, carried out a survey of 30,456 members of their internet monitor group in mid-September to find out what was their definition of fun. The respondents were 57.3% male, with 1.5% aged nineteen or under, 23.8% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 7.9% in their fifties, 2.0% in their sixties, 0.4% in their seventies, and 0.5% did not disclose their ages.

One surprising figure is the mere two percent who find enjoyment through religion or supernatural stuff. The actual number of members of religious groups is around 8.8%, so it seems not very many people at all derive pleasure from their practice. Perhaps, as Marx said, religion is the opium of the people from which the majority of people derive merely reassurance to keep them secure. Of course, as a member of Soka Gakkai myself, I would say that most of the people I know who practise do indeed appear to derive pleasure from their activities.
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goo Research, along with japan.internet.com carried out their fifth survey on the usage of internet tools. 1,044 people from all over the country, 42.43% male, filled out an internet-based questionnaire in mid-November regarding their usage of internet tools. The age demographics of the survey was 2.30% in their teens, 23.95% in their twenties, 40.61% in their thirties, 22.32% in their forties, 7.85% in their fifties, and finally 2.97% sixty or older.

My personal usage of internet tools is relatively low, I think, even though I run this blog. Feedburner and BlogLines fulfil most of my RSS-related requirements, and Google deskbar is useful too, but since I am a big Opera fan, add-in browser toolbars are not available, but not really needed either. I’m not sure about the exact definition of Alert Services that is used; does setting Windows Update (or any of the numerous other apps that have their own updater) to automatic checking count as using such a service?

Note also that the most popular reason for using a particular RSS service is that a site recommends it. From a blogger’s point of view, does this suggest that we really should jump onto the bandwagons and push our feed links more strongly at our readers? However, after noticing this post on Performancing (the whole site is a recommended read) I wonder if as bloggers we should concentrate as much on a mail feed as on RSS, especially given that over 50% more of the people surveyed here used mail alert services compared to RSS readers.

As a cross-reference, I found a post by Joi Ito regarding this topic with figures from mid June or earlier. RSS readership has grown 50% in just six months, and those not knowing what a blog is has fallen to a quarter of what is was before, according to a recent survey.
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goo Research recently carried out a survey on Oseibo gifts, the traditional end of year gift-giving period in Japan, in conjunction with Yomiuri Shimbun and NTT Resonance. Just 1,079 people were questioned from their internet monitor group, but no breakdown by age or sex is reported, nor is the sample size for each individual question noted.

Luckily at my place of work there is no Oseibo bribery gift-giving custom from employee to boss, but we do get the occasional free calendar or diaries from associated companies, and a friend of the family usually gives us a couple of jars of instant coffee.
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goo Research carried out their eighth survey into web-based mail service opinions, in conjuction with Anchor Research and japan.internet.com. 1,065 people from goo’s internet montior group replies to the poll questions, 41.41% male, and 40.75% in their thirties.

I use web mail rather heavily – in fact my mail for this domain is managed through a webmail service, autoforwarded to GMail, where I then pick it up, along with two other mail boxes. My permanent mail address is reserved for non-blog-related spam. Note that in Q7 below I discover data that significantly disagrees with that obtained from a previous survey regarding New Year cards.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently carried out a massive opinion poll to investigate how people in Japan use internet banking.In cooperation with NTT Resonance and Mitsubishi Research Institute they surveyed 43,074 members of the goo Research internet monitor group and ordinary goo users. This public poll was conducted for two weeks in the middle of October, with 56.0% of the respondents female. 2.2% were in their teens, 23.3% in their twenties, 40.4% in their thirties, 23.8% in their forties, 7.8% in their fifties, 2.1% in their sixties, and just 0.4% over seventy.

It seems that both conventional banks’ net services and net-only banks do not give any significant discounts on transaction fees – Japan still has lots of fees for doing almost anything outside working hours or more complicated than withdrawning money – but even with that worries about security, which is probably as much due to perceptions as actual danger, need to be addressed to give potential customers the assurance that the services are safe.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently carried out a massive opinion poll to investigate how people in Japan use internet banking.In cooperation with NTT Resonance and Mitsubishi Research Institute they surveyed 43,074 members of the goo Research internet monitor group and ordinary goo users. This public poll was conducted for two weeks in the middle of October, with 56.0% of the respondents female. 2.2% were in their teens, 23.3% in their twenties, 40.4% in their thirties, 23.8% in their forties, 7.8% in their fifties, 2.1% in their sixties, and just 0.4% over seventy.

I am unsure whether or not PayPal counts as a net-only bank, or even if it, or an equivalent system, is popular is Japan. However, it seems internet-only banks are surprisingly popular (although since this is an internet-based survey there is some built-in bias), but if bricks and mortar banks offered transaction fee discounts for online usage, perhaps they could seriously erode the net-only banks’ customer base. It’s interesting, given that one of Koizumi’s pledges has been to do away with silly rules for the sake of it, that it seems that net banks cannot be used for utilities payments or lottery ticket purchase. My bank back home, first direct, has internet-based services, but I still prefer the telephone (and with Skype it’s ridiculously cheap!) for all my business.

This is another large survey that I will publish over two days.
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