标题: The Latest Survey of Singlehood in Japan [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 9-18-2016 12:39 标题: The Latest Survey of Singlehood in Japan Mizuho Aoki, In sexless Japan, Almost Half of Single Young Men and Women Are Virgins: Survey. Japan Times, Sept 16, 2016. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news ... urvey/#.V97iG1srLcs
the first two paragraphs:
"A [latest] survey of Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women are not in a relationship.
"Moreover, many of them have never got close and cuddly. Around 42 percent of the men and 44.2 percent of the women admitted they were virgins.
Note:
(a) Mizuho AOKI 青木 瑞穂
(i) mizuho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuho
("Mizuho literally means 'abundant rice' in Japanese and 'harvest' in the figurative sense. It was also an ancient name of Japan")
(ii) 瑞穂 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%91%9E%E7%A9%82
("瑞穂（みずほ）とは、みずみずしい稲穂のことである。稲が多く取れることから瑞穂の実る国ということで、「瑞穂国」（みずほのくに）、「豊葦原千五百秋瑞穂国」（とよあしはらの ちいおあきのみずほのくに）が日本国の美称としても使われる")
(A) Japanese-English dictionary:
* mizumizushi-i (signifying a long vowel for "i") みずみずしい 《瑞々しい(P); 水々しい》 (adj): "(1) young (and lustrous); fresh; juicy; (2) lively; vivacious; animated; vibrant <みずみずしい桃をかじった時の味が何とも言えません。 I love the taste when I bite into a juicy peach>"
^ The "mizu" and "shui" is Japanese and Japanese pronunciations, respectively for kanji 水.
^ mizu/zui 瑞 【みず; ずい】 (n): "(1) (みず [pronounced 'mizu'] only) (arch[aic]) youth; freshness; purity; luster (lustre); beauty; (2) good omen [eg, 瑞雲 [pronounced 'zui-un'] (n) '(n) auspicious clouds']"
* toreru 取れる 【とれる】 (vi): " (See 獲れる, 捕れる) to be caught; to be harvested"
* minoru 実る 【みのる】 (vi): "to bear fruit; to ripen"
(B) My translationof the quotation in ja.wikipedia.org: 瑞穂 means young, lustrous ear/head of rice 稲穂. [figuratively] From rice to be abundantly harvested to young rive to bear fruit, 瑞穂国 and 豊葦原千五百秋瑞穂国 are Japan's poetic names 美称
(b) "Far from getting together and getting it on, the sexes are growing apart"
get it on: "informal have sexual intercourse" (Urban Dictionary: "popularized by Marvin Gaye in his classic 'Let's Get It On' ")
(c) "The study, released Thursday, was conducted [in 2015; but results released on Sept 15, 2016] by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. The institute has conducted the same survey every five years since 1987"
(i) The survey:
第15回出生動向基本調査（結婚と出産に関する全国調査）. 国立社会保障・人口問題研究所, Sept 15 (Thursday), 2016. http://www.ipss.go.jp/ps-doukou/j/doukou15/doukou15_gaiyo.asp
(A) The subjects of research are unmarried individuals 独身者 and married couple 夫婦.
(B) Near the bottom is Summary of Results 「結果の概要」, whose Part I 第Ⅰ部 is "独身者調査の結果概要."
(ii) 第Ⅰ部 独身者調査の結果概要 (total 16 pages):
Quote:
For both men and women overwhelmingly: "独身生活の最大の利点は「行動や生き方 [how to live/ life style] が自由」であること
Also for both men ( 43.3％) and women (41.9％): "結婚の障害は「結婚資金」が最多
The report (in Japanese only) does not use 処女 (pronounced "shojo") or 処男. Rather, "性経験がない" (no sexual experience) is used.
"図表 [Table]Ⅰ-2-3 調査・年齢別にみた､性経験のない未婚者の割合" says the ratio 割合 of the unmarried who has no sexual experience reached the bottom (the fewest), for both men and women, in 2005 (since the first survey conducted in 1987 and released in 1988). So with years, the ratios of unmarried individuals has a V pattern, highest in 1987 and 2015. The same table also shows that in each survey, both men and women lose virginity with years. In the latest survey (conducted in 2015 and released last Thursday): Only 25.6% of men and 31.3% of women in the age group of 30-34 has no sexual experience (and thus are virgins).
"未婚者の同棲経験割合は 30 代前半で１割強" -- "図表Ⅰ-2-5 調査・年齢別にみた､同棲経験のある未婚者の割合" shows: In the age group 30-34 (a subset of unmarried individuals age 18-34, who are research subjects of Part I), in THIS survey 10.4% of men and 11.9% of women have experienced co-habitation. That is why the quotation says about 10% １割 .
about
(d) "The institute has conducted the same survey every five years since 1987, when the proportion of unmarried men and women who said they had no partner stood at 48.6 percent and 39.5 percent, respectively."
(i) "[N]o partner"? It is ambiguous: no sex partner or no dating partner? It is the latter.
(ii) Look at "図表Ⅰ-2-1 調査別にみた､未婚者の異性との交際の状況" (where the noun 交際 means association). The question is " 交際している異性はいない" (translation: no opposite sex to associate with).
(iii) This quotation -- in (d), for the 1987 survey -- has to be read together with the first two paragraphs for the 2015 survey ("Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70 [specifically 69.8%] percent of unmarried men and 60 [specifically 59.1%] percent of unmarried women are not in a relationship")
(e) "There was no accounting for the discrepancy between the genders, except perhaps for the age-old problem of men and women having different understandings of the word 'commitment.' "
My own interpretation is the age-old habit of men dating and marrying younger women.