Japanese Public Opinion Surveys: 20-Year Trends

Abstract

This article examines characteristics of Japanese public opinion surveys during 1990–2009 and makes pertinent comparisons with the past. Public opinion surveys continued to increase with cities being the major contributor to that growth. Surveys conducted face-to-face and those that used drop self-administered questionnaires decreased, whereas mail surveys increased. Telephone surveys remained a relatively minor method, but increased substantially compared to before 1990. The use of Voter Registration Lists decreased; whereas there were increases in surveys that sampled either from the Basic Resident Registers or did not employ lists. For the 1990-09 period as a whole, the median response rate was 58.9% which suggests a steeper decline than the decreases observed in the past. Surveys sponsored by central government agencies had the highest rates and those by universities the lowest. Among studies that used probability sampling, the highest median response rates were for drop self-administered questionnaires followed by face-to-face and mail surveys.