With the rapid aging of society it pays to pay attention to all the latest economic statistics regarding old people, and lately we've come across quite a few. Here are some new numbers about households in which the designated head-of-household is 65 or older, carried in the Asahi and Tokyo Shimbuns.

  • The average monthly income in 2011 was ¥185,000, which is about ¥3,000 less than the average in 2010.
  • About 90% of total income is in the form of government and company pensions.
  • Average spending is ¥221,000 month, meaning that the average household is ¥36,000 in the hole.
  • However, in 2011 average savings for households when there are at least two people stood at ¥22.57 million. Savings among seniors has been increasing gradually since 2008, but the statistic may be misleading since it is heavily weighted toward upper income households newly entering the senior demographic. Median savings is ¥14.6 million.
  • 5.44 million people over the age of 64 worked in 2011, which represents 27.6 percent of the nation's population over that age; 46 percent of men and 26 percent of women between the ages of 65 and 69 worked.
  • Total number of people over 64 exceeded 30 million in 2011, with 50,000 over the age of 100.
  • As reference, in 2005, when the number of elderly was slightly over 26 million, about 2.2 percent were collecting welfare. The average monthly welfare payment for two-person elderly households in Tokyo was ¥122,000 and for outside of Tokyo ¥94,500. About 47 percent of elderly who received welfare also received some sort of government pension, at an average of ¥46,000 a month.