Awareness Survey of 18-Year-OldsResults of 5th and 6th installments announced

The results of the fifth installment of the Awareness Survey of 18-Year-Olds, launched by The Nippon Foundation in October 2018, were announced on December 3, 2018. The theme was “Disability,” and the survey found that half of respondents knew that companies of a certain size are legally required to have a certain percentage of their workforce represented by persons with disabilities, but more than 80% did not know that the actual percentage of these employees is only about 1.9%.  In addition, fewer than half of respondents had assisted someone with a disability, with the top reason for not assisting being, “I didn’t know what to do.”

The results of the sixth installment, on the theme of “Sex” and announced on December 18, 2018, showed that roughly one in four respondents had had sexual experience, while roughly three in four were concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, and close to 90% felt contraception is necessary. Internet websites are the top source of information regarding sex, and roughly 60% of respondents felt that sex education in school is useful, while those who did not pointed out the need to teach about the importance of contraception and the danger of sexually transmitted diseases. This shows that sex education in Japan is lagging internationally and needs to be updated.

In the information below, simple sum totals that do not equal 100 are due to rounding.

Survey 5. Disability (Results announced on December 3, 2018)

Finding: Fewer than half (45.8%) of respondents have assisted someone with a disability.

Of those respondents who have not assisted someone with a disability (n=246; excluding the 188 respondents who replied that they have not had an opportunity to assist someone), the top reasons for not doing so were:

I didn’t know what to do (34.6%)
I didn’t think it was necessary (24.0%)
It somehow seemed right not to do anything (19.5%)
I thought I would be interfering or a nuisance (16.7%)
I was too shy (13.4%)

Finding: 50.0% of respondents knew that companies of a certain size are legally required to have a certain percentage of their workforce represented by persons with disabilities, but 80.5% did not know that even though the persons with disabilities make up roughly 7.4% of the overall population, the actual percentage of these employees is only about 1.9%.

Finding: Upon being told that the legally required percentage of employees with disabilities is 2.2%, only 10.4% of respondents felt that this provided sufficient opportunities for employment.

Survey 6. Sex (Results announced on December 18, 2018)

Finding: 23.3% of respondents have had sexual experience, with 17 being the most common age for their first experience.

Age at which respondents had their first sexual experience (n=162):

Finding: Of respondents who replied to the question of whether contraception is important, 86.7% felt that it is. (n=723)

Of the 13.3% of respondents who did not feel that contraception is important, the top reasons given were:

There is no need to use contraception (26.9%)
Using contraception is troublesome (15.4%)
I want to enjoy the moment (13.5%)