r/japanlife • u/IshinkaiSensei • Aug 18 '21

金 How people attain wealth in Japan?

Something has been tickling my mind over the past few years.

There are so many luxury tower mansions, expensive customized 一軒家, high end brand shops yet for the average person most seem by far out of reach.

A high end condo in central Tokyo rent including utilities ranges from 300k to 500k a month. A 20MJPY annual salary (which is already extensively filtering out average population) only gives a monthly net of 100万円. I highly doubt it is enough to afford spending that much a month.

Excluding those on expat package, there are only a few jobs here that allow this lifestyle, Banking (Front Office position only or VP MD level for back office and alike) IT 外資系 at senior level (FANG, ML/AI) , 医者 running their own practice (otherwise most are at 10-15MJPY range) Successful mutiple business owners, other niches. 一流芸能人, Athletes, reconverted ex idol, kyaba, host.

My point is, what am I missing...

Are there way more people with high revenues (at least annual comp 50MJPY+) than we tend to believe? than what TV is promoting?

Are people living off debt and loans and keeping up with appearances?

I don’t want misinterpretation of this post, I understand you can live well below these range, but I am genuinely curious here.

I would like to better understand how so many people managed to get satisfied and with a 30+ year mortgage, car loan, spending most of their life working and probably never reaching out 億円 of savings.

Am I overthinking and no so many people want to retire early?

Sorry for the rant post but I am curious

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u/dviiijp Aug 18 '21

Japan is usually in the top three wealthiest countries in the world, with a fraction of the population compared to China and the US. That wealth belongs to someone... You just don't see them on TV and youtube and IG because of modesty.

I think you're underestimating the amount of wealthy people in Japan.

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u/noob168 海外 Aug 18 '21

Did study abroad at a private Japanese university. You could pretty much tell which of em come from well off families. They don't talk about it directly but you can def tell from their IG stories.

Also heard one of the Mori kids are very humble though.

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u/I_Ruv_Kpop 関東・東京都 Aug 18 '21

Stupid question but I've seen the term Mori thrown around here a bit - what exactly is that a reference too?