An overview of the Survey of Family Relationship, Job Experience, Retirement Allowances, and Intergenerational Transfers (in Japanese)

Japan is now facing the most drastic population aging among all the industrialized countries. The ongoing sweeping demographic changes-population aging combined with lower fertility-are posing an unprecedented challenge to the Japanese economy. Moreover, tax and social security reform have become imminent issues. To redesign the system properly, construction of micro-level data that provide the foundation for policy debate is indispensable. Against this background, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) implemented a household survey titled "Survey of Family Relationship, Job Experience, Retirement Allowances, and Intergenerational Transfers," in January, 2010. While there are at least a few official sources of micro-level data on Japanese households, the survey is intended to complement existing government statistics, most of which do not cover information about asset holdings, retirement allowances, human capital, and the intergenerational transfers (through bequests). This overview outlines the survey, including its purpose, scope, and methodology. It also reports some summary statistics to illustrate the facts that are revealed by the survey.