Recent Japanese Study Reports Alarming Number of Sexless Marriages, Others Suggest a Culture of Work as a Problem

In a country with an alarming decline in birth rates, a recent study has found that married couples are abandoning sex in similarly alarming rates. The study, conducted by Tokyo-based web design and internet advertising agency Raison d’être, with 4,000 married people aged 20-59 answering questions about their sex lives, found that more than 68% of marriages in Japan are completely sexless or virtually devoid of a physical element. Across all

surveyed age groups, 43.9% were in sexless marriages, while 24.3 per cent said their marriages were “nearly sexless.” And About half of married women in their 20s were in sexless or nearly sexless relationships, which jumped to 67.8% among women in their 30s. As to men, some 53.4% in their 20s said they have no or very little sex in their marriages, and 71.4% said the same in their 30s. The numbers continued to climb among older age groups, with some 78% of women in their 50s saying they were in sexless or very nearly sexless marriages, and 81% of men in the same age bracket reporting the same. Despite the lack of sex, 57% of those surveyed in sexless or virtually sexless marriages also reported that their relationship with their spouse was either good or very good.

While the Raison d’être study did not consider the reasons married couples in Japan are not having sex, studies by the Japan Family Planning Association over the last 20 years have offered some perspectives. In its first study in 2004, the JFPA reported that 22.3% of women in Japan did not have sex because it was “bothersome,” while over 20% did not feel like having physical contact with their husband after having a baby. Another 17.4% said they were too tired from work, while 8.2% no longer saw their husbands as a sexual partner but as “family”. Among men, the most common reason expressed by 35.2% often was that they were too tired after work. Another 12.8% said they saw their wife as “family” instead of a sexual partner, and 12% had lost interest in sex after a child was born. Only 7.2% did not have sex because it was “bothersome.”

In addition to the significant declining birth rates that Japan faces, sexless marriages just don't sound like all that much fun.