‘Very worrying’: record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, survey shows

A record high 78.2 per cent of Japanese people are anxious about their lives, according to a government survey, with the economy, rising prices, uncertain job prospects and the state of the world cited as reasons for their disquiet.

The percentage of Japanese expressing concern about their day-to-day lives is the highest since the Cabinet Office started conducting the annual survey in 1981 and up from 75.9 per cent last year, while the survey also revealed that a growing number feel their standard of living is declining.

Nearly 64 per cent of the 1,831 people who responded to the survey said they were worried about their health, with 62.8 per cent saying they were fearful about how they would manage after retirement. The study, released on Friday, also showed that 58 per cent were concerned about their future income and savings.

Some 64.5 per cent said they were unhappy with their incomes, down 3.5 percentage points from last year, with just 34.9 per cent happy with how much they were earning, although that figure was a 3.5 percentage point improvement on the December 2023 survey.

Asked where they estimate they are on a standard of living scale, 1.7 per cent said they were in the top echelon of Japanese society, the same as last year, while 14.2 per cent said they were in the top of the middle class, down from 14.7 per cent one year ago.

Some 46.3 per cent said they were in the middle of the middle class, down from 46.7 per cent last year, while 28.1 per cent said they were in the lower middle class, a decline from 25.5 per cent. Those identifying as being in the lowest class of Japanese society went from 8.1 per cent last year to 8.7 per cent in the most recent study.