Summary of Research Findings

A consumer survey on the items and services for female care and femtech (consumables & services) was performed in September 2022 to 10,147 women in their 20s to 60s nationwide.

First, the survey asked, “do you know the meaning of the word “femtech”? The awareness of femtech was found out to be low at 5.8%. Though it improved by 2.4 points when compared to 3.4% of last survey held in September 2021, the awareness of femtech remained low.

The response of “Have heard of the word “femtech”, but do not know the meaning” accounted for 14.0%, which was up by 4.3 points from 2021 survey. It seemed to be because the opportunities for femtech to be taken up by media increased after 2021.

When observing the awareness by age group, those in 30s (8.1%) and 40s (7.8%), the target customers for femtech items and services, showed slightly higher awareness than the rest of the age groups. Still, approximately 80% of all age groups responded that they did not know the word femtech. Such a response by those in their 50s (83.7%) and 60s (84.5%) occupied more than 80%.

Because of the above results, to improve the awareness among younger generation that could be the future target customers is imperative to expand the female care and femtech market. 

Noteworthy Topics

Almost Half of Women Hoped for Male Bosses and Colleagues to Know General Knowledge on “Menstrual Pain”

The survey asked whether or not you would like men (boss, colleagues, partner, and family members) to know about the general knowledge on women’s specific health issues. The question was asked on each of the following five specific health issues: “menstrual pain,” “PMS (Premenstrual syndrome),” “menopausal symptom/disorders,” “fertility treatment and any efforts of trying to get pregnant,” and “gynecology (breast/ovarian/cervical cancer).”

In the responses by the women for which of male acquaintances that they hope them to know the general knowledge on menstrual pain, “Male partner” accounted for 56.2%, followed by “Male boss” 47.5%, and “Male family (father or brothers)” 39.2%.

For the responses of which of male acquaintances to wish to share general information with on menstrual pain, “Male partner” accounted for 42.0%, by far the higher rate than other attributes.

The survey found out that almost half of women consider that they hope for men to know general knowledge on women’s specific health issues. Women feel particularly so for male partner. While the word femtech still has low awareness, not a few women hope for men close to them to know general knowledge on women’s specific health issues.

That said however, in the response for “whether or not do you want to share your own health issues specific to women with your male acquaintances (boss, colleagues, partner, and family members)”, women who want to share about their menstrual pain with male boss accounted for 19.1%, and with male colleagues accounted for 18.0%, both showing that many women feel that they do not want men to know about their own female specific health issues.

Research Outline