TOKYO: The share of households seeing their living conditions as difficult increased 8.3 percentage points from the previous year to 59.6 percentage points in 2023, a welfare ministry survey showed Friday.

The ministry believes that the result stemmed from rising prices.

The latest national survey on living conditions was conducted from June to July 2023, with 40,526 families on household composition and 4,768 families on incomes.

According to the annual survey, among all respondents who answered that their living conditions were difficult, 26.5 percent chose the word “very difficult” and 33.1 percent chose “somewhat difficult.” By household type, 59 percent of aged households and 65 percent of households with children answered that their living conditions were difficult.

The survey also showed that the average annual income per household decreased by 215,000 yen, or 3.9 percent, from the previous year to 5,242,000 yen.

The average for aged households was 3,049,000 yen, down 134,000 yen.

Meanwhile, households with children posted an increase of 276,000 yen to 8,126,000 yen. The growing share of working mothers seems to have pushed up their average.

In families with children, mothers with work accounted for 77.8 percent of all mothers, hitting a record high. The share of full-time employees among working mothers was 32.4 percent, also a record high.

JIJI Press