Ryu Araki

Tag: Japan

  • Japan welcomed 42.7 million international visitor arrivals in 2025. Yet Japanese overseas travel remained 27% below 2019.

    Same airports. Two very different recoveries.

    Before calling Japan “inward-looking,” I would look at what a trip costs a household earning yen.

    Using annual average exchange rates, a US$1,000 expense cost roughly:

    • 2019: ¥109,000
    • 2025: ¥149,600

    That is 37% more yen for exactly the same dollar price—before any increase in hotel rates or restaurant bills.

    For a family saving for a holiday, that difference can determine whether the trip happens at all.

    JTB’s 2026 survey puts numbers behind that pressure. Among respondents planning no overseas travel:

    • 36.5% cited high travel costs.
    • 26.5% cited a tight household budget.
    • 21.2% cited the weak yen.

    Multiple answers were allowed.

    Money is not the only reason people stay home. But choosing not to travel and being priced out are different things.

    The weak yen that stretches a visitor’s budget in Japan also shrinks a Japanese household’s budget abroad.

    What have you seen in your own country: people losing interest in overseas travel, or struggling to afford it?

    Sources:

    JNTO — Visitor arrivals and Japanese overseas departures
    https://lnkd.in/gsbnjfXh

    JTB — 2026 Travel Trends Outlook
    https://lnkd.in/eNiCymD9

  • Japan lost 3.17 million residents in five years. It gained almost 1.5 million households.

    The final 2025 census, released on September 29, 2026, puts Japan’s population at 122,972,528, down 2.5% from 2020. Tokyo was the only prefecture to record population growth.

    Total households moved the other way: 57,324,619, up by 1,494,465.

    Among private households, excluding institutional households such as those in care facilities and school dormitories, average household size fell from 2.21 people to 2.10. One-person households reached 23.69 million, or 41.4% of private households.

    What fascinates me is how differently the same numbers can look depending on where you stand.

    For a landlord, more households could mean more potential tenants. For a business serving young children, a shrinking population could mean a tougher market.

    The same demographic shift can create opportunities for some and challenges for others.

    Statistics don’t tell us exactly what the future holds, but they give us clues about where the world is heading.

    That’s why I want to keep paying attention.

    Source:
    Statistics Bureau of Japan, final 2025 census
    https://lnkd.in/eTKmVgks

  • Japan Has 107,677 People Aged 100 or Older. In 1963, It Had 153.

    Japan crossed the 100,000 mark for the first time this September.

    I find that encouraging. As an investor and a parent, it also makes me question what we are planning for.

    Retire at 65 and live to 100. That is 35 years without a salary—potentially almost as long as your working life.

    Three questions follow.

    First, money. Does your retirement plan still work if you live longer than expected?

    Second, care. What happens if one spouse needs daily help while the other remains independent?

    Third, work. Would you want to stop working completely—or have the freedom to keep doing something meaningful?

    These figures do not tell us how long any individual will live. But they make a long retirement harder to dismiss.

    I would like to see my children celebrate my hundredth birthday without anyone having to worry about paying for my care.

    A longer life should be something we can afford to welcome.

    What needs the biggest rethink: how we save and invest, when we retire, or how we provide care?

    Source: MHLW, September 2026 centenarian survey.

  • Japan Lost 918,263 People in One Year. That Is Almost a City the Size of Chiba, Gone.

    The final 2025 figures came out last month. Births: 671,270. Deaths: 1,589,533. The gap: 918,263. Chiba City has about 999,000 residents.

    Three things stand out.

    First, this is the 19th year in a row. Deaths first overtook births in 2005. In 2015 the gap was 284,789. A decade later it is more than three times larger.

    Second, deaths actually fell in 2025, for the first time in five years. The gap barely moved, because births kept falling.

    Third, births are now less than half of deaths. Even if the birth rate recovered tomorrow, the generation that would have those children is already smaller than the one before it.

    For investors, this is not a forecast. It is already in the numbers: fewer customers, fewer workers and fewer taxpayers in Japan every year.

    What do you think is the most underestimated consequence?

    Source: MHLW, Vital Statistics 2025 (final)

  • Japan’s Stock Market Rose. Who Owned the Upside?

    By March 2026, foreign investors owned a record 34.7% of Japan’s stock market by value—the largest investor category in the share ownership survey.

    Japanese individuals held 17.4% directly.

    That ownership gap deserves a place in the story of Japan’s corporate revival.

    The familiar version is about buybacks, higher dividends and boards under pressure to take their cost of capital seriously. But the benefits of higher share prices follow ownership, wherever the shareholders happen to live.

    Foreign investors held a larger direct stake than any other investor category. They were major beneficiaries of Japan’s rising equity values.

    For Japanese households, participation depended on what they owned.

    At the same date, households held ¥1,126 trillion in cash and deposits—roughly 93% of the combined market value of the companies covered by the survey.

    Nearly the entire market capitalization of Japan’s stock market, held in cash and deposits.

    Those deposits provide liquidity and security. They can earn interest. What they cannot do is rise in value alongside the companies whose shares are appreciating.

    A household can live through a stock-market boom without seeing that boom reflected in its savings account.

    The latest annual trading figures sharpen the contrast. In the year to March 2026, TOPIX rose 31.6%. Overseas investors bought a net ¥10.3 trillion in shares, while individuals sold a net ¥4.8 trillion.

    Some sellers will have taken profits. And direct shareholdings understate household participation: investment funds and pensions also bring the benefits of ownership into Japanese homes.

    Still, those benefits reach households unevenly. A family with substantial equity exposure participates very differently from one whose financial assets are mostly deposits.

    As a Japanese investor living in Kuala Lumpur, I find that more revealing than another headline about the index.

    Foreign investors owned a substantial part of Japan’s recovery. Many Japanese savers had much of their money in assets that could not participate in it.

    Making companies better investments is one achievement. Turning that progress into broadly shared household wealth is another.