FX.co ★ Japanese wives restrict their husbands to pocket money

The average allowances doled out by Japanese women to their employed husbands decreased to the level registered in 1982, Bloomberg reported on July 2.
Currently, wives allow spending about 38 thousand yens ($386) on average, down 3% from the last year and twice less than in 1990 when the indicator hit its maximum.
Meanwhile, according to the agency, the men went on the bottle after work. Last year an average working Japanese man would visit pubs 2.2 times a month spending almost
3,500 yens each visit, which is 26% more than the reading of 2011 year.
The agency links the short-cuts of the husbands’ cash allowances to the Japanese women’s distrust in the government program by Shinzo Abe focused on encouraging the economy and securing its sustainable growth. Along with the measures contemplated in the program, it is also aimed to fight against the traditional Japanese thrift that has an utterly negative impact on the state of the economy. Besides, the current line of the authorities also means boosting the government expenditures as well as the Japanese yen debasement.
At the present day, an average salary amounts to nearly JPY 314 thousand (or $3 thousand) per person per month. Meanwhile, wages have not been going up for several months; this causes aversion of the population. Nevertheless, by and large, the program has been yielding certain fruit. Thus, the welfare of Japanese families has grown by 4.7% on the whole for the first three months in 2013. Moreover, for the first time ever, the country succeeded in reaching the pre-crisis level of 2007 in terms of that indicator.
It is the wife who takes charge of a family budget in at least half of all Japanese households. She withdraws a salary from her husband and makes a decision on her own how much is to be given out to him for everyday needs, including cell phone bills, alcohol, cigarettes, and entertainment. By doing so, just moderate sums are allocated, since the Japanese prefer saving money rather than spending it.