By JUMPEI MIURA/ Staff Writer
October 4, 2023 at 17:54 JST
Only about 10 percent of men aged 21 to 30 with annual incomes below 2 million yen ($13,400) get married, underscoring the need for wage hikes to lift Japan’s low birthrate, the labor ministry said.
The ministry’s survey tracked people in their 20s for five years from 2013 to see how many of them wed over that period.
Among men aged 21 to 25, the marriage rate increased to around 30 percent if they earned 3 million yen or more annually.
And for men aged 26 to 30 who were paid 3 million yen or more a year, the marriage rate was around 40 percent.
The same trend—higher pay leads to more marriages--was observed among women, though not as clearly as with men.
The survey is part of the ministry’s annual white paper on broader labor issues, including how to encourage young people to start families and lift Japan’s chronically low birthrate.
The latest edition of the report, released in September, focuses more on situations related to wages.
The study found that men with annual incomes of at least 5 million yen were 16 percent more likely to get married than those earning less than 2 million yen.
For both men and women, workers with full-time, regular employment had more chances to get married compared with part-time or temporary workers.
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The less young people earn, the less likely they get married, according to a labor ministry report. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
