• Viewpoints
• Research

Hello again from the Career Woman Lab. The previous installment analyzed the online behavior of Japanese working women as a whole, revealing that they are highly aware and active on every front—fashion, beauty, leisure, eating out, romance. (Click here for our survey of online behavior among Japanese career women in general.)

In this installment we’ll dissect website access patterns among different “clusters” or types of career women. While Japanese career women are all information-savvy, it turns out that different clusters are attuned to different things. (Click here for our column about the traits of each career woman cluster.)

Who is most into fashion and beauty?

The category most into “Fashion, accessories, makeup & hair” online are casual career women—housewives in waiting—closely followed by professional types and humdrum types.

Casual career women, despite their apparent interest in fashion and beauty, seek financial stability and prefer cost-effective items like bargain cosmetics. That may be why they gather various types of information via websites, which unlike magazines don’t cost anything. Professional types and humdrum types are both basic in their tastes, so presumably they use the Internet to search for conventional information rather than cutting-edge ideas.

The women least into fashion and all that, incidentally, are oddball types. They put their own interests first and consider fashion a low priority, so they evidently can’t be bothered to gather information about it online.

Who is most into business news?

Professional types, of course—specialists eager to make a difference, whose work is their hobby. Their high motivation on the job is clearly reflected in their online behavior. The women least into business news, by the way, are showy types, who are constantly fishing for likes. It’s not that they’re particularly unenthusiastic about their job or give it little thought; but since they’re constantly on the lookout for information on the latest trends anyway, they evidently don’t find it necessary to check the Internet for business news specifically.

Who is most into entertainment news?

As you might expect, showy types top the rankings in this category. Always eager to keep abreast of the latest news, they must find the Internet to be an indispensable information source. Following hot on their heels as entertainment news aficionados are, somewhat surprisingly, professional types. So perhaps these professionals are not just all work and no play.

The women least into entertainment news are trend followers. They take a wait-and-see attitude before jumping on the bandwagon, so going out of their way to seek out information online may not be their style. They score fairly low in other categories as well, which suggests that they prefer to catch up on news in a wide range of areas without delving too deep.

Who visits foodie sites the most?

Gung-ho types are the most into “Food & dining information.” Having lots of friends and being avid consumers, they evidently have plenty of opportunities to eat out and often seek information online. Humdrum types too score high and, while they didn’t place first, are only 2.3 points behind. Perhaps they like to indulge a little when it comes to their everyday meals precisely because they have few interests.

The women least into food are casual career women with their concern for financial stability. They hate to splurge and probably consider it a no-no to check out information on delicious-looking haute cuisine!

Who visits E-commerce sites the most?

The most frequent users of E-commerce sites are humdrum types. E-commerce, which lets them shop from home, must be a godsend for them, since they’re not good at communicating with people anyway. They probably buy everything from fashion items to daily necessities online.

So as you can see, Japanese career women differ from each other in their online behavior depending on which category they belong to.

And that brings to a close our series “The truth about working women,” which commenced in April 2017. We’ve examined the mindset of career women in Japan today from many different angles: their rejection of the label “OL” (office lady), their strategic thinking, generational differences among them, their use of social media, their attitudes to love and marriage, the traits of the seven types of career women, and the products purchased and websites visited by each. We look forward to sharing our observations about Japan’s working women again somewhere.

Erika Takizaki

Researcher, Career Woman Lab
Planner, Strategic Department 2, Planning Division 3

Erika Takizaki, who joined Hakuhodo in 2015, works on marketing planning in such fields as fashion, beverages, and gaming apps. She is into video games and manga. Her favorite animal is the Asian short-clawed otter.

• Survey Outline
Online survey by Macromill, Inc.
When conducted: May 2017
Results from a nationwide panel of 200,000 were extracted for the 7 clusters defined by the Career Woman Lab Survey.
* “Career women” here means working women aged 20–39 without children (regardless of marital status) with annual income of \2m or more (excluding part-timers).