Survey asks men to pick professions they’d like for a woman they’d like to marry.

Up until a generation or two ago, the majority of Japan’s married women were fulltime homemakers. That’s no longer the norm, though, with modern brides, and many mothers too, remaining in the workforce.

So with married women now also being working women, Japanese Internet portal Minna no Ranking (“Everybody’s Ranking”) posed the question, what jobs do men find most attractive in a potential wife?

The format of the survey is unique, so let’s go over that first before delving into the results. The poll was conducted through the Minna no Ranking website, collecting responses from a total of 765 users as of February 10. Respondents were presented with a list of occupations and could then assign point values, from 1 to 100 to those they had opinions about. Minna no Ranking then calculated the average score for each job to determine the ranking order. Though the poll specifically asked for men to respond, the voting appears to have been open to anyone.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the top five results for “Ranking of Jobs for a Woman I Want to Marry.”

5. Chef (average score 65.5 from 24 respondents)

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and by extension you could say that a woman who’s a chef is a professional pathfinder when it comes to arriving at a man’s affection. “I feel like if she cooks for work, she might cook at home too. And she’d probably be able to cook a wide range of dishes, so meals would be really enjoyable” said one respondent who gave this profession the maximum score of 100.

4. Nutritionist/dietician (average 66.2 points from 40 respondents)

“Once you get married, you start taking your nutritional health more seriously, so someone who’s a nutritionist would probably be able to make healthy, balanced meals,” said one 100-point respondent. Another thought even longer term, saying that a wife who’s a nutritionist would be able to help ensure that their future children eat healthy too.

3. Pharmacist (average 72.5 points from 62 respondents)

Respondents who ranked pharmacist highly see it as a sort of best-of-both worlds situation. It’s a high-paying job that requires intelligence and an earnestness, but removed from the high pressure, stressful workplace relationships, and late-night work hours that doctors and nurses are often subjected to in hospitals.

2. Nursery/preschool teacher (average 72.6 points from 66 respondents)

Caring and considerate are how many respondents describe their image of nursery/preschool staff, who they also respect for their calm and soothing demeanor. One respondent also mused that as he himself has had very few interactions with small children, he doesn’t think he’d feel confident making decisions on his own about how to raise his own future kids, and would feel reassured with a wife who has expertise in such matters.

1. Nurse (average 74.9 points from 119 respondents)

In picking nurse as the most desirable job for a wife to have, multiple respondents mentioned the profession’s high salary as a plus, both in that it would contribute to a comfortable economic situation for their shared household and also a sign that, by their estimation, nurses would be less likely to marry a man because of his bank account. While acknowledging that the job often involves irregular and late-night hours, respondents also pointed out that nurses’ jobs themselves are very stable, as health workers are in high demand in the current Japanese economy.

Other points of appeal stem from respondents’ impression that nurses are caring and intelligent individuals, and that the nature of their work draws mentally strong and secure individuals. “I want to marry a nurse who, if I cut my hand or fall and hurt my leg, will gently disinfect and bandage the wound, like Florence Nightingale,” pined one 100-point respondent.

It’s worth noting that the survey was specifically asking about the abstract concept of which professions are attractive for a potential wife to have. As such, participants weren’t necessarily responding from the mindset of “I expect my girlfriend to quit the job she has now and do one of these instead before I’ll marry her!” The theoretical nature of the question also probably goes a long way towards explaining why many of the reasons respondents gave for their picks were ways in which they, or their future children, would benefit from their wife being in such lines of work. In that sense, you could say the list is, in a way, a ranking of idealized daydreams disconnected from the other attractive aspects of unique, real-world individuals, not unlike the survey of jobs women want their theoretical husbands to do.

Source: Minna no Ranking via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko
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