Ten percent of Japanese in their 30s remain virgins: study

April 8, 2019

Tokyo--One in 10 Japanese people in their 30s had no heterosexual experience as of 2015, according to a study published in a British journal by a Japanese team on Monday.

The team, led by Kenji Shibuya, visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, said that men with lower incomes were more likely to be inexperienced.

Young Japanese men who do not want sex have been referred to as "soshokukei danshi," or herbivorous men, but "I guess (such men) may be inexperienced against their will due to their incomes or employment status," Peter Ueda, visiting researcher at the university, said.

The team estimated the virginity rates mainly from the results of the National Fertility Survey conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research between 1987 and 2015. The survey focuses mainly on attitudes toward marriage and childbirth as well as sexual experience.

The proportion of sexually inexperienced people aged 18-39 was on the decline until around 2000 before turning higher, according to the team. The rate among men grew from 20 pct in 1992 to 25.8 pct in 2015, while the figure for women rose from 21.7 pct to 24.6 pct.

The study also showed that 12.7 pct of men aged 30-34 were inexperienced in 2015, up from 8.8 pct in 1987, and 11.9 pct of women in the same age group were virgins, up from 6.2 pct.

Among people aged 35-39, the inexperienced rate among men rose from 5.5 pct in 1992 to 9.5 pct in 2015, while the figure for women grew from 4.0 pct to 8.9 pct.

An analysis of the data for 2010 showed that nonregular male employees and jobless men aged 25-39 were respectively 3.82 and 7.87 times more sexually inexperienced than male regular workers in the same age group.

The lower the income is, the higher the inexperienced rate becomes, according to the study.

The study also found that the virginity rates in Japan were several times higher than those found in European and U.S. surveys.

The team suggested that the high inexperienced rates in Japan may be linked to drops in the birthrate in the country and said that income and employment support may be needed. Jiji Press