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The message is that it's okay to raise allowances, but only by the amount of the sales-tax rise. It's clear that real income is falling.

19 Comments

Shinichiro Kobayashi, a senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co. Japanese women are allowing their husbands larger monthly allowances to offset a sales-tax rise at the start of the financial year. (Bloomberg)

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19 Comments
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allowance to a grown man is laughable.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The alleged increases in income are a joke when compared to the increase in cost-of-living expenses in daily necessities like food, basic toiletries, etc.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The message is that the men in this country have little hope if they have to put up with a third man telling their wives how much of their own hard earned money they are allowed to spend.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Wages haven't risen, but expenses have. Where is this "increase" in allowance meant to come from? There was hardly any surplus for a lot of people before this insane tax rise, let alone after. Most people simply CANNOT keep the same standard of living, and from what I can gather in my day to day expenses, food and toiletry prices are risen higher than the basic tax increase.

Japan is not thriving on Abenomics.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

allowance to a grown man is laughable.

Agree. Imagine if I were married to a man who refused to get a job, withheld my own income from me, and stayed at home popping bon-bons all day. There's not a jury in the land who'd convict me.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

@boweevil Awesome

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tessa, this is Japan, and Japanese culture is that men get "allowances", the women control the household expenses. If you do not want to live your life like this, that is absolutely YOUR perogative. Japan does very well with women staying at home, the vast majority of which raise polite, well educated, well cared for children. Family finances are not unlimited, people cannot just buy what they want when there are other things which need to be taken care of for the people that come first in a family - the children.

And Im pretty sure if you commited any harm to a family member for financial reasons you would pretty much be convicted and sent down, even in Japan.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

If a husband can afford to support his wife so that she doesn't have to work, why wouldn't he want to? Forcing the wife to work, for the sake of working, doesn't really make much sense to me.

Allowances are a good way to control spending. There is nothing wrong with an allowance in and of itself. It's the implementation that makes the difference between whether it's a good system or not.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Imagine if I were married to a man who refused to get a job

Why would you even consider marrying a man with values so very different to your own? The vast majority of stay-at-home wives stay at home with their husband's blessing; they agree that looking after the kids is more important than a bit more in the family finances pot. Most husbands who hand over their salaries and get an allowance in return are perfectly happy to do so. Yes, most would probably like the allowance to be a bit bigger, but they know how much they earn and are happy not to have to worry about stretching it to make ends meet. Having someone else deal with the monthly bills and living expenses is quite liberating.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Having someone else deal with the monthly bills and living expenses is quite liberating.

So true. Someone recently asked me how much my mobile bill was every month. I couldn't even give them a ballpark figure. This was a bill that made me angry every time I paid it when I was single. Now I don't even need to think about it. Ignorance is bliss.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

As for money distributions me and wife used the following system.

Me being the major earner I paid the rent/loan, insurance, various fees and other big items(agreed upon), my wife who earned less than my income tax paid the utilities, food, etc.

Worked well and any leftover money either got saved or used on hobbies. We also didn't need a shared account.

As a friend once said: Wealth is not about how much you got but how you use it to have a good and easy lifestyle.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Having someone else deal with the monthly bills and living expenses is quite liberating.

Yes, it certainly is! That's why I outsource it to someone I don't have to feed, clothe, and take any crap from!

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

I am so glad you have your life the way you want it. Judging the way other people live their lives and manage their finances as inferior, whilst being very impolite about a whole section of society that is doing their job as a wife and mother in Japan is not quite so acceptable.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Japan does very well with women staying at home, the vast majority of which raise polite, well educated, well cared for children.

Um, I hate to have to tell you this, but the vast majority of Japanese women are not even having children in the first place.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Um, I hate to have to tell you this, but the vast majority of Japanese women are not even having children in the first place.

I don't buy this. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's flat out incorrect. Do you have anything to back up this claim?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Do you have anything to back up this claim?

Do you have anything to back up your insistence that it takes several decades out of the workforce for a woman to raise 1.4 children?

Japanese housewives: refusing to work and refusing to breed!

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

The current birthrate is 1.4 per Japanese woman. For "most" women not to be having babies, the rate would have to be under 1 per woman. Most women are having babies, just not a LOT of babies. The hysterical and dehumanising "refusing to breed and work" is just not true. Staying at home with children, looking after a family IS work.

The fact that most Japanese mothers stay home when their children are in school is not a bad thing. They are there when the kids get home, to help with homework, make sure they are not getting in trouble. Ild go so far as to say Japanese women are excellent mothers on the whole.

I do wonder where the childless and child hating think that their pensions are coming from in the future, and just why they think they get any say in how women from a culture different from their own, in a country that they have chosen to come to, raise their kids.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I do wonder where the childless and child hating think that their pensions are coming from in the future, and just why they think they get any say in how women from a culture different from their own raise their kids.

Speaking as a taxpayer and a teacher of children who probably spend more of their waking hours with non-related adults than with their own stay-at-home mothers, I am of the firm opinion that yes, I do have a say in the matter.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

I am of the firm opinion that yes, I do have a say in the matter.

If you want to talk about the unfairness of tax benefits/health care/free pensions to non-working women and their husbands, yes you do have a say. If you want to lay down the law on how other people choose to live their lives and raise their families, then No you do not have a say.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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