A record 80% of mothers in Japan were employed in 2024, a welfare ministry survey showed Friday.
The proportion of working mothers rose 3.1 percentage points from the previous year to 80.9%, topping 80% for the first time since the annual survey started in 1986.
The latest survey also found that 58.9% of households felt they were struggling to make ends meet, almost unchanged from the year before.
The share of households with children slid 1.5 points to a record low of 16.6%, meaning that the number of such households in the country is estimated at 9.07 million.
Among households with children, the proportion of mothers working as regular employees rose 1.7 points to a record high of 34.1%.
The average income per household was ¥5.36 million in 2023, up 2.3% from 2022. Households with one or more children earned ¥8,205,000 on average.
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