July
7, 1999
BRIDGE
THE BridgeNews FORUM: A series of viewpoints on prospering in the global economy.
OPINION:
Women Changing The Face of The Japanese Internet
Women May Constitute Nearly Half The Nation's Internet Users By 2003
By Rachel Howe, managing partner of DSA Analytics
LEESBURG, Va.--Feminization has been one of the strongest demographic trends in Japan's Internet usage over the past year.
The Internet economy is growing fast in Japan. Business-to-consumer Internet commerce could reach as much as 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) by 2001 and the number of Internet users could grow to over 30 million by that time.
Foreign firms should look to women as the trendsetters on the Japanese Internet. Women comprised some 21 percent of the nation's total Internet population of 14 million at the end of 1998, according to my firm, DSA Analytics. They are now approaching upward of 40 percent of all new Internet users.
By the year 2003, a recent government survey estimates, women may constitute nearly half the Japanese Internet population.
There is increasing evidence that differences in the way Japanese men and women use the Internet are shaping the development of on-line services.
The community-building aspect of the Internet is very strong among women. They are more likely than men to start using the Web because a friend recommended it, and are also more likely to use e-mail or chat rooms to meet up with their friends on the Web.
Indeed, it's this community-building aspect that is driving the development of new content and services targeting women. Advertising firms have begun to offer women-only services for free, in exchange for marketing information provided by female members or the advertising space available on the women-only sites.
Often, female Internet patterns are tracked for marketing purposes. Firms monitor the women networkers under the assumption that commerce feasibility studies should be based on on-line behavior.
Also emerging on the Internet landscape are networking arrangements that meet the demands of a restructuring economy. These arrangements balance the economy's need for outsourcing with the traditional desires of Japanese women to be at home.
One pioneering site is TES (www.macnet.or.jp), a network of female entrepreneurs meant to facilitate interaction, education and exchange of information.
Office Will, at wwvw.macnet.or.jp/co/o-will/ow-index.html, is one of the tenants of TES, linking women working at home with companies looking to outsource work previously conducted in-house by female employees.
Office Will runs Japan Mothers' Bank, a database of women seeking part-time work while raising children at home. This is a response to the growing number of housewives on-line in Japan who are relative latecomers to the Internet, but who have a higher than average appreciation for on- line commerce.
The organizing theme behind these sites is the desire of women to balance child-rearing responsibilities with maintaining workplace skills.
If women continue to log onto the Japanese Internet at their current rate, and fully exploit its potential rather than simply following male behaviors, they could shape Japanese cyberspace into a more equitable place in the 21st century.
RACHEL HOWE is managing partner of DSA Analytics (www.dsasiagroup.com), a business research firm focusing on East Asia. Her views are not necessarily those of Bridge News, whose ventures include the Internet site www.bridge.com.
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