The Role of Skin Tone in Konkatsu (Looking for a Marriage Partner)

by Mitsumi Yamamoto

In 2007 sociologist Masahiro Yamada proposed a new term “konkatsu” to describe the act of looking for a marriage partner (Yamada & Shirakawa, 2008). Konkatsu is an abbreviation of “kekkon katsudo”, which means marriage hunting. Since the first use of this term in a weekly journal AERA, there has been a big boom in konkatsu with mass media actively broadcasting about this phenomenon in Japan.

Today there are around 3,700 websites aimed to support people in konkatsu and Yahoo! has sponsored two websites that encourages konkatsu and arranges parties for unmarried people (Yahoo! JAPAN). The number of single men and single women in konkatsu who have struggled, and currently are struggling, with selecting their marriage partner is not small.

By studying konkatsu we can see what kind of qualifications people are looking for in their prospective marriage partners. This blog post will highlight how skin tone plays a role in the process of choosing a future wife or husband in Japan and how there is a correlation between race and gender regarding skin color.

Firstly what kind of qualifications and requirements do people set for choosing their partner? According to a survey released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, both men and women tend to consider a good personality (honest, kind, considerate etc.) as the most important factor. Personal values come in second (Co. dentsu, 2004).

Although both men and women consider personality and values as major points when choosing their partner, there are differences in how they evaluate the possible candidates. The same study indicates that the third most common qualification men tend to consider is their partner’s appearance while women rather ask for financial stability. Possibly due to the importance men place on their partner’s appearance, women themselves seem to take good care of their appearance for konkatsu.

For example, the ladies’ magazine FRaU featured an article about konkatsu-hada (skin for marriage hunting), explaining how women can make konkatsu-hada with skin care products such as liquid foundations, body oils and cheek blushes in order to succeed in konkatsu (X BRAND, 2013). The article suggested that they help to make your skin whiter and clearer, showing your purity and honesty like Cinderella appearing in a fairly-tale.

It seems that the article implies that light and clear skin is regarded as favorable for finding a marriage partner. How about men’s skin tone? According to an investigation carried out by Panasonic, 70% of women answered they prefer men with tanned skin rather than men with white skin (Co. Panasonic, 2007). The electronic commerce and Internet giant Rakuten Inc. also researched about the connection between the use of sunscreen and maintaining white skin. When comparing results between men and women in their twenties, it seems that only 13% of men use sunscreen in order to maintain a lighter skin tone, while 60% of women answered that this is their main goal. In fact, as many as 50% of men answered that they do not even care about sunscreen, whereas 90% of women were keen on using it (Rakuten, Inc., 2013). The results of this survey that show men are often not concerned about the lightness of their skin.

It can be said that men and women consider different attributes in konkatsu and that skin color is gender-specific, with skin color playing an especially important role for women. Having lighter skin is considered an important factor for women who are looking for future husbands. This shows us that there seems to be correlation between skin color, race, and gender, since favorable skin color varies greatly between different races and between genders. For example, recently it seems that tanned skin is favorable among Caucasian men and women, however in Japan and India women with lighter skin are preferred. On the other hand in Japan it seems that men who have tanned skin are preferred over men with light skin tone, showing that there are great variations between ideal skin tones.

References

Yamada, M., & Sirakawa, M. (2008). Konkatsu Jidai [KONKATSU Period]. Tokyo: Discover 21

Yahoo! JAPAN. Retrieved from http://omiai.yahoo.co.jp/

Co. dentsu. (2004). Syoushika ni kansuru ishiki chousa [survey about decreasing birth rate]. Retrieved from http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/bukyoku/seisaku/syousika/040908/

X BRAND. (2013). Kirei no takurami [trick for beauty]. Retrieved from http://xbrand.yahoo.co.jp/category/beauty/10947/1.html

Co. Panasonic. (2007). Otokomae Chousa [survey about man’s good looking]. Retrieved from http://panasonic.jp/beauty/men/chosahoukou/chosa/

Rakuten, Inc.. (2013). Shigaisen taisaku ni kansuru chousa [survey about UV protection]. Retrieved from http://research.rakuten.co.jp/report/20130802/