The Top Priority for Marriage Conditions Is Appearance, This Country Meets Partners Through Matching Apps

Meiji Yasuda Life Conducts Survey Ahead of Couples' Day on 22nd
22.6% of Japanese Married This Year Met via Matching Apps
Asahi Shimbun: "Impact of Reduced Face-to-Face Meetings Due to COVID-19"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] Among Japanese people who got married this year, one in five met their spouse through a dating matching application (app). This is attributed to the reduced opportunities for face-to-face meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a recent report by Japan's Asahi Shimbun, local life insurance company Meiji Yasuda Life conducted a survey of 1,620 married individuals aged from their 20s to 70s ahead of Couple's Day on the 22nd.

Among those who got married this year, 22.6% cited matching apps (services that connect new encounters online) as the reason for their first meeting. This rate is even higher than the responses of meeting at work or school (each 20.8%).

The percentage of marriages that began through matching apps was only 2.4% between 2010 and 2014. It remained low at 6.6% from 2015 to 2019 but has steadily increased since 2020 (17.9%), when COVID-19 spread.

In contrast, introductions by friends and acquaintances, which accounted for 14.9% before COVID-19, dropped to 9.4%. Additionally, meetings at events hosted by companies that introduce marriage partners decreased from 8.1% to 3.8%. The newspaper analyzed that the pandemic's impact on reducing face-to-face meeting opportunities has relatively increased encounters and marriages through matching apps.

There is another recent marriage-related survey result released in Japan. It concerns the conditions for choosing a marriage partner, as revealed in the "16th Basic Survey on Birth Trends" conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) of Japan.

According to ANN News, the survey showed that 81.3% of Japanese women consider "appearance" an important condition for a marriage partner, marking an all-time high. Considering that this rate was 67.6% when the survey was first conducted in 1992, it has increased by 13.7 percentage points over 20 years. The economic capability chosen by women as a condition for a marriage partner remained at a similar level to 20 years ago, at 91.6%.

Japanese men showed a tendency to place more importance on their partner's "economic capability," increasing by about 17 percentage points compared to the 1997 survey. The media analyzed, "Women tend to seek appearance, and men tend to seek economic capability," adding, "As the traditional marriage conditions for men and women have reversed, the conditions in Japan's marriage market are also changing."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.