1 in four households in Japan have no savings
The Mainichi Daily News had an interesting article this morning about peoples savings. Or perhaps better said, lack of them.
Nearly one in four households in Japan has no savings, according to a survey conducted by the Central Council for Financial Services Information.
The panel surveyed 10,080 households across the country from June 23 to July 10 about their savings. The response rate was 34.5 percent.
The average amount of savings per household came to 10.73 million yen in 2006, down 120,000 yen from the year earlier. Japanese households are saddled with average debts of 5.36 million yen, a decrease of 190,000 yen.
A total of 22.9 percent of households surveyed have no savings at all this year, down 0.9 percentage points from last year.
(Mainichi)
I wonder how accurate that is. If you ask a Japanese person something directly, they won’t necessarily answer accurately. There is so much humility, I’m sure a certain percent of people will say no, I don’t have any savings, just as they say no, my English is terrible since I’ve only studied for 10 years.
October 12th, 2006 at 9:24 am[...] One in four households in Japan have no savings, alexpappas blogs about a survey result. [...]
October 12th, 2006 at 1:54 pmI wonder if they included annuities? A big savings vehicle here.
But I’ve always suspect those figures that showed Japan to be the world’s biggest savers. The eldery are large savers –but their kids and especially their grandkids are not.
That’s why (in my totally non-professional opinion, grain of salt) the Big Bang was more of a fizzle. Eldery folks aren’t going to put their money into some new fangled investment when they can get a whopping .000002% interest from the friendly folks at the corner post office. And they get to talk to the other neighborhood old fogies while they’re waiting in line.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:47 pmWell, we’d better hope the Japanese don’t quit saving money. Their savings prop up the global economy by underwriting American credit buying.
Interest or not, a reasonable amoung of savings is essential to a healthy household, getting kids through school, meeting medical and other emergencies, and for retirement. There is nothing like a bit of liquidity when things don’t go as one had expected. Murphy’s Law, you know.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:44 pm