Japanese salarymen see pocket money shrink under Abenomics

The average Japanese husband's monthly allowance slumped to the lowest level since 1982 at the start of the country's financial year as workers awaited the dividends promised by Abenomics.

Salarymen's spending money, typically set by wives managing family budgets, was ¥38,457 (HK$2,996) down 3 per cent from last year and less than half the 1990 peak, according to Shinsei Bank, a Tokyo-based lender whose data go back to 1979.

The latest survey of 2,000 people was conducted on April 20 and 22 via the internet, a report published last week showed.

With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledging to revive the world's third-largest economy through unprecedented monetary expansion, fiscal stimulus and business deregulation, salarymen have allotted more of their budgets to going out drinking.

They went out an average 2.2 times a month, spending ¥3,474 yen each time, up 21 per cent from last year, the report showed.

"[The] husbands' allowance is the most lagging indicator of Japan's economy, while female spending is the first to increase," said Hiroshi Miyazaki, a senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo, who says his own ration has been unchanged for a while. "Japanese salarymen don't have to be pessimistic. Their pocket money should gradually increase to reflect Japan's recovery."