Both the purchasing funnel and viewing content differ this much depending on the female life stage!

This series analyzes media behavior with a focus on women's life stages.
For the analysis, we examined Dentsu Inc.'s large-scale survey data ( Dentsu d-campX / details here ) to define women's life stages. We focused on factors like employment status, marital status, and children's presence, extracting 11 segments where we could consistently maintain a sufficient sample size.

*Segments were extracted from Dentsu Inc. d-campX data and do not represent all women. In reality, diverse segments exist, such as married students, unemployed unmarried women, and unmarried women with children. Some segments may overlap.

This time, we introduce the role of media in the female purchasing funnel and the viewing content of each segment.

<Table of Contents>
▼Is the "M-Shaped Curve" Inherent in Every Woman? Examining Women's Labor Participation Through Daily Time Use

▼Busy Working Moms Have a Shortened Purchase Funnel. How Life Stages Shape Different Purchase Funnels

▼Is Your Content Reaching Your Target's Life Stage?

Is the "M-Shaped Curve" Inherent in Every Woman? Examining Women's Labor Participation Through Daily Time Use

In Part 1, we mentioned that the number of working women is increasing and dual-income households now make up a high proportion. Honestly, though, this didn't match my personal experience. I didn't feel that women were participating in companies and society to such an extent.

Looking at macro data like labor participation rates, the "M-shaped curve" appears to be narrowing. But could it be that this curve is simply embedded within each individual, making it harder to see? Driven by this question, we examined micro-level data on time use by gender and generation to understand labor participation patterns.

What I found was that men significantly exceeded women in daily work hours on weekdays, with the gap widening most notably among those in their 30s and 40s—a group where many are raising children. Looking specifically at time spent on household chores (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, childcare, and miscellaneous household tasks), and particularly childcare, women's time spent significantly exceeds men's, again centered around this age group. This reveals that the apparent resolution of the M-shaped curve stems from individual women shouldering a large proportion of household labor while working. Furthermore, if household chores are considered labor, the total working hours (combining paid work and household labor) show women exceeding men, particularly in their 30s. This suggests they are managing their limited disposable time to engage in media consumption and purchasing activities.

Therefore, this time, we will examine the data while focusing on segments such as busy mothers of youngest preschool children juggling work, housework, and childcare, as well as the differences between full-time married women and full-time homemakers/part-time homemakers.

Source: Graph created by processing data from NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute's "2020 National Time Use Survey" ( https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/yoron-jikan/ )

Busy working moms also have a shortened purchasing funnel. The purchasing funnel varies by life stage

First, let's examine the role of each media channel within the purchase funnel. We compared responses from Dentsu Inc. d-campX data in 2017 and 2024 regarding which media channels "influenced" consumers at each stage from awareness to purchase intent. The funnel for the four mass media channels and insert flyers shows a shrinking trend, while conversely, online advertising—both video and non-video—showed significant score growth. This expansion is driven by smartphones.

We extracted TV commercials and online ads (video ads) from this data and compared them across four segments corresponding to child-rearing stages. To make the trends easier to see in the graph below, we listed the differences from the overall average for women. A larger positive difference indicates a stronger trend, while a smaller difference indicates a weaker trend. The results show diverging trends across the segments.

Particularly for full-time married women (youngest child not yet in school), it makes sense that they experience a shortened purchase funnel—moving directly from personal relevance to purchase—without passing through the middle funnel. This is likely because they are consumed by both work and childcare.

Full-time married women (youngest child not yet in school) → Shortened funnel
Focusing on online ads (video ads), scores for detailed awareness and understanding (middle funnel) are not high, but ad effectiveness is strong in personal relevance and purchase intent. This busy segment juggling work and childcare shows potential to reach purchase without passing through the middle funnel for online ads (video ads), suggesting a "shortened funnel."

Full-time/Part-time homemakers (youngest child not yet in school) → Middle-expanded funnel
Focusing on online ads (video ads), scores for the middle funnel—from detailed awareness to search—significantly exceed the average, indicating the middle funnel remains highly functional. Personalization, in particular, scores notably high at 15.4 points.

Full-time/Part-time Housewives (Youngest Child School-Age or Older) → TV-Based Bridge Funnel
Compared to other segments, this group shows notably high scores for TV commercials. Specifically, search intent and purchase intent exceed the overall female average by about 10 points. Since TV commercials lead to online search behavior (search) and in-store purchasing ( ), this can be termed a "bridge funnel."

Is the content reaching the target's life stage?

Finally, let's examine TV and online viewing content. Mapping each segment using correspondence analysis (*) revealed distinct content preferences per segment, identified by axes such as "information value" vs. "entertainment value" and whether content is "stock-type" or "flow-type."

※Correspondence Analysis = An analytical method that visualizes relationships between categorical data. It measures the "distance" between categories and visualizes their "relationships," enabling a visual understanding of data patterns and structures. Items with strong relevance are plotted closer together, while those with weak relevance are plotted farther apart.
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Regarding preferred TV genres, segments with youngest children in school or older showed a preference for "entertainment content" like movies and dramas, while relatively older age groups showed a preference for "information variety" content like home/lifestyle information and talk shows.

Interestingly, segments with students and those with youngest children not yet in school were plotted on the far left quadrant, outside the scope of this diagram. Students show a preference for "Anime/Games," while the two segments with youngest children not yet in school appear to favor "Knowledge/Cultural Enrichment" content.

Regarding online browsing habits shown below, preferences include "Life/Practical Information" such as government/administrative agency information and meal plans/recipes, as well as personal hobbies like "Music/Games, etc." The youngest child not yet in school segment again did not fit within the diagram, being plotted in the lower left quadrant. This segment actively collects information on "childbirth, education, and childcare," clearly distinguishing itself from other segments. Thus, both the student segment and the youngest child not yet in school segment have distinctive content preference positioning. When planning TV commercials or online ads, it seems necessary to carefully consider the content to be advertised.

Let's summarize the key points discussed so far.

Point 1: While working women are increasing, women still spend overwhelmingly more time on housework and childcare, managing media consumption within limited time.

Point 2: The purchase funnel varies significantly by segment. For segments in the peak child-rearing phase where time is precious, the funnel may be shortened, necessitating planning that accounts for this.

Point 3: In addition to students, the segment with youngest children not yet in school occupies a unique position in content consumption. Note that advertising may struggle to reach them effectively using strategies similar to those for other closely related segments.

We are in an era of diverse lifestyles and values among women. Rather than segmenting female targets by age, approaching them by life stage can increase the resolution of target identification and media planning. As the number of working women increases, those in child-rearing years particularly tend to have limited disposable media time, which likely impacts their purchasing funnel and content preferences. The explosive growth of information and content, especially online, may further accelerate this trend. We will continue exploring advertising messages and communication approaches that resonate with the life stages of these women.

[Survey Overview]
Data Source: Dentsu Inc. d-campX Surveys conducted from 2017 to 2024
Survey Area: Greater Tokyo Area