Japan Press Weekly

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2012 August 15 - 21 [WELFARE]

65% of female pensioners live on less than \1 mil annual income

A survey result released by the welfare ministry in July shows that 65% of elderly women receiving pension benefits live on less than one million yen a year and 30% live on less than 500,000 yen. This highlights the extremely low levels of pension benefits for women, Akahata reported.

Among all pensioners, 40% live on an annual income of one million yen or less. The average annual income of male pensioners is 2.9 times higher than female pensioners whose average is 1.03 million yen.

The Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry between November 2010 and February 2011 conducted the survey on the actual status of pensioners’ incomes. It totaled up each pensioner’s annual incomes from the public pension program, his/her employment, and his/her businesses in 2009.

According to the survey, 72% of pension recipients are unemployed.