23.8 % of Households have No Savings
Thursday, December 1, 2005 Posted: 03:41 PM JST
On November 2, the Central Council for Financial Services Information (whose secretariat is the Bank of Japan) published the results of its 2005 Public Opinion Survey on Household Financial Assets and Liabilities. Of the households surveyed (41.1 percent of the single-person households surveyed, and 22.8 percent of those with more than one family member) 23.8 percent replied that they had no savings.
This is an increase of 0.9 percentage points over last year's survey. The average financial assets of the households surveyed overall, including those with no savings, amounted to 10.85 million yen, and the median, which gives a picture of the financial situation of ordinary households, was four million yen.
By type of financial asset, savings and deposits (excluding postal savings) accounted for the largest proportion, about 40 percent of the whole, followed by postal savings (some 20 percent), with these two types together accounting for some 60 percent.
The proportion of households with money borrowed stood at around 40 percent, more or less the same as in the previous year. The average amount of money borrowed was 5.55 million yen overall, and the average figure for those with outstanding debts was 14.52 million yen, both showing an increase over last year.
Keywords: national_news
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