*Published on 12/8 (Sun) 5:51 Toyo Keizai Online Kazuhisa Arakawa: Singles researcher, columnist The rate of unmarried men is closely related to annual income. This is an undeniable fact. The lower the annual income, the higher the rate of unmarried people, and men with higher annual incomes tend to get married first. Of course, there is no causal relationship between having a high annual income and being able to get married, but at the very least, if your annual income is too low, women will not choose you as a potential marriage partner. In a previous article, we revealed the results of the 2022 Basic Survey on Employment Structure to see whether, for childless couples where the wife is 29 years old or younger, the annual income of each spouse is husband > wife, husband = wife, or husband < wife (see ``The cruel gap between high-income earners who can get married and the middle class who can't''). According to the survey, 70% of people had a husband greater than wife, 20% had a husband = wife, and 10% had a husband less than wife. ■Women are critical of their spouse's economic strength Whether this is right or wrong, marriage is essentially an “upward-facing marriage” in which the husband has a higher annual income than the wife. This is a couple that does not yet have children, so when a child is born, the wife may take temporary leave or retire, and the ratio of husband to wife will likely increase even further. That is why women take a critical look at their potential spouse’s financial strength, taking into account the possibility that the husband may end up being the sole driver of the household. This is a given since marriage is an economic life. That being said, I don’t have lofty ambitions such as an annual income of tens of millions of yen. I use my own annual income as the standard, and I don’t want someone to be just “equal to me”; I want someone who earns “at least higher than me.” According to a recently published survey on young people’s life design and dating conducted by the Agency for Children and Families in 2024, 77.2% of unmarried women aged 25 to 34 responded that they would prefer their spouse to have a higher annual income than themselves. This percentage is not just because they are unmarried women. Similarly, married women aged 25 to 34 were asked about what it was like when they were single, and the percentage of those who answered yes was 81.7%, which was higher than the percentage of unmarried women. In fact, I think it was precisely because he met someone who “earns a higher annual income than me” that he was able to become married. In short, that is how important a man’s annual income is in making marriage a reality, and this is precisely why marriages are declining. Continued below ↓ 70% of men with an annual income of less than 2 million yen are unmarried… The reason why Japanese people do not get married is due to “men’s annual income” (Toyo Keizai Online).
Nominal salary is 300/month/25, take home pay is 19/month, no bonus, but my only day off is on Sundays and I just sleep. People who are in relationships and raising children are amazing.
To be precise, it’s the difference in salary between men and women. If salaries are the same, then the conditions for marriage will be youth and looks. It’s tough for older people.
If you have an overwhelming annual income and status, you can get married even in your 40s, 50s, or 60s. In the first place, that age group is the generation that remarries, and after raising children, they marry their mistresses to move on. If your salary is the same as a woman’s, or even lower, it’s very difficult.
The birth rate in the Republic of Congo is 4.1. You can see that money isn’t a big deal. Sure, if they had an annual income of 10 million, they might have been able to get married, but that’s because they’re winners, not because of money.
>>31 In Africa, all the old people die. The average age is around 40. In Japan, the average will soon be 80, but you can’t just tell the old people to die.
>>31 If you want to raise 4 kids until they become adults and can find employment, it would cost 30 million yen each in Japan but in Dojin, it’s about 30,000 yen, right? Even if they’re born, you can’t go to the hospital if they get sick, and when they die, you just bury them somewhere.
It’s impossible to raise children comfortably unless you have a family with an annual income of 2 million yen or a civil servant with a 2-horsepower salary.
>>36 Isn’t it just that kids feel bad and parents feel miserable when they don’t have a comfortable life? Even loser families with an annual income of 200+200K can afford to send their kids to high school. That’s just what they call an “unhappy life.”
I wonder what percentage of people earn less than 2 million yen a year. If you work 8 hours a day, 20 days a month at 1000 yen an hour, that’s about 2 million yen. They’re not full-time workers.
>>37 Less than 10% By the way, 28% of unmarried men earn less than 4 million yen In fact, many articles have used figures from the National Tax Agency’s private sector salary survey and said that at most 10% earn less than 2 million yen a year. The survey figures do not distinguish between marital status, but there is a big difference between unmarried and married people. To put it simply, unmarried men with an annual income of 4 million yen or more account for only 28% even when the age range is expanded to include those in their 20s to 50s.
Annual income is like a composite value of all of a person’s abilities. Having an annual income that is well below average may mean that you lack communication skills, tenacity, and even borderline intelligence. The idea is that if you just give such people money, they will be able to marry you.
If you earn less than 2 million yen, you can’t work full time, so you’re likely to have health problems. This is an issue that goes beyond the annual salary, isn’t it?
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