A survey by ad agency Hakuhodo Inc. carried out on 1,418 households with children showed Thursday that 48.9 percent of them plan to save their government allowances in the fiscal year they debut, indicating the outlays may do little to boost consumption.
The allowance program is expected to be introduced in fiscal 2010, which starts next April.
Of all the Tokyo and Kansai region households polled, including those who said they will use the allowances within the fiscal year in which they are first provided, 67.3 percent said they will use the money for education and child rearing and 30.9 percent said they will use the funds for general living expenses.
About 80 percent of the households that said they will use the allowances for living expenses said they will use them within the fiscal year.
The survey was conducted in October and November on households in the Tokyo metropolitan and Kansai regions with children in the second grade at junior high school or younger to be covered by the government program.
The ruling bloc has pledged to provide households ¥26,000 per month for each child of junior high school age or younger.