Are AGU Students Wealthy? -EIZY AGU Poll December 2023-
Mamoru Yakuwa, Sakuya Okada
A.G.University News (EIZY) conducted a student survey about their financial conditions. This article aims to analyse the financial situations of Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) students. Between December 20th and December 22nd, 213 students on the Aoyama Campus were asked about their financial situations. The survey was promoted on EIZY’s official Instagram account. The aim of this survey was to examine the finances of AGU students. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and other global events, there has been a recent drastic increase in the cost of living. Furthermore, there is pessimism about the economic outlook for members of the younger generations. Therefore, it is interesting to examine the financial situations of Aoyama Gakuin University students.
Summary and Analysis
Household Income
Despite many students defining their households as “middle class,” quite a few households fall into the upscale category when considering the data. However, this does not necessarily mean that the lives of students themselves are easy, as other factors beyond finances alone also affect the lifestyles of the students.
Work
It was found that roughly ninety percent of AGU students have part-time jobs. Additionally, these students work much harder than was expected. Making ends meet may not be the only purpose of working as a university student: there is an implicit pressure to devote oneself to their job, as the word bachiku (a portmanteau of baito and shachiku) shows. Baito (originally arubaito) means part-time job, and shachiku refers to people who (are mostly forced to) dedicate themselves to their job. Additionally, students may work for enjoyment or even to find a lover.
Allowance From Guardians
About 40% of AGU students do not receive any allowance from their parents. This was an unexpected result, because the survey showed that quite a few AGU students are from wealthy households.
From these results, two conclusions were drawn. First, many AGU students are trying to be independent from their parents and are preparing for the future of being self-reliant; despite the relative wealth of their households, most students have part-time jobs. In addition, many students are no longer financially reliant on their family. Many students don’t receive pocket money from their parents. At most, students who receive substantial amounts of pocket money from parents are the minority.
The following figures detail the information collected by the survey.
Figure 1: Faculty, school or department of respondents
Figure 2: Grade of respondents
Figure 3: Preferred pronouns of respondents
These are the basics about this poll’s samples. Literature and International Politics, Economics and Communication students were the most enthusiastic participants, with the overwhelming majority being in their first two years. Furthermore, there were more female respondents than males.
Figure 4: Cohabitation of respondents
It matters who you live with to money savers. Over 70 percent of the respondents live with their parents, and almost all the rest live by themselves. 2.3 percent live with their partner, but it may be an economic choice to save money by splitting rent.
Figure 5: Self-reported estimate of economic class
Even with “Cannot Answer/Not Sure” included on the graph, more than 60 percent identified themselves as a middle-class family. The gap between the rich and the poor in Japan is said to have widened throughout the decades, but many still seem to see themselves as middle-class, regardless of the validity of the claim.
Figure 6: Annual family income
Many students are not entirely sure of the family’s precise annual income.. Despite many students defining themselves as middle-class, the reported annual income trends higher than the average of Japanese households. According to the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, only 12.6 percent of households in Japan earned 10 million yen or more in 2022. Thissurvey, on the other hand, reveals that a quarter of AGU students are from households that make more than 10 million yen annually. This means that the percentage of so-called “10 million players” is double the national average. When “Cannot Answer/ Not Sure” is excluded from the data set, the proportion of such households even increases to nearly 50 percent.
Figure 7: Tuition payer
An overwhelming majority of students relied on their guardians to afford tuition. However, with the new policy to make university tuition free for families with three or more children from 2025 onwards, the landscape may change.
Figure 8: Students’ Assets
While there are some students who possess more than a million yen, most students keep less than that in their pockets.
Figure 9: Students’ monthly income
Two third of the respondents make up to eighty thousand yen per month, which is close to the limit for the tax deduction for dependents. The remaining one third surpasses eighty thousand yen per month, which means they are obligated to pay income tax.
Figure 10: Scholarship and/or student loan amount per month
As revealed in the previous question, most students are supported by their guardians to pay tuition fees. Some students do receive scholarships or take out student loans, but the majority are reliant on the financial support of their parents.
Figure 11: Monthly allowance of respondents
Almost forty percent of AGU students do not receive an allowance, and manage their finances by themselves. Among allowance receivers, there was a tendency in the amount of money being up to fifty thousand yen a month.
Figure 12: Employment status
An extremely high percentage of AGU students have a part-time job. This is not a surprise considering the proportion of students who do not receive allowance from their guardians. One student who does not work told EIZY that it was because wages are generally low for students and they wanted to focus on their studies.
Figure 13: Income from employment
There is not a particularly clear pattern in the monthly income of part-time work. The income varies from none for those that do not work all the way to more than one hundred thousand yen per month at the top end.
Figure 14: Hourly wages
The Kishida administration has announced that the minimum wage will be raised to 1500 yen until 2030. However, the majority of respondents currently earn twelve hundred yen or less per hour.
Figure 15: Sectors of work
Many AGU students are engaged in food service jobs, including restaurants and bars. The next most common sectors are education and customer service. __percent of the respondents stated that they work multiple jobs.
Some respondents were also asked to provide details about their part-time jobs. The following are some of the responses:
Figure 16: Opinions of part-time work 1/2
Figure 17: Opinions of part-time work 2/2
It seems scholarships and student loans, allowance from guardians, and wages from part-time jobs are the three primary sources of income for AGU students. However, there is a proportion of students who make money in other ways; reselling items, using services such as Mercari, was the most common of the options we set. One respondent says they make more than a hundred thousand yen per month from reselling goods. Nevertheless, students that earn money this way are a minority, constituting less than ten percent of the respondents.
Figure 18: Non-work income sources
Figure 19: Monthly spending
The general trend of the graph matches that of income, which does not contradict the result that the majority of the respondents do not keep a lot of money in their pockets but rather spend most of it.
Figure 20: Self-evaluation of wasteful habits
Almost seventy percent of the students perceive themselves as having a wasteful habit. To further investigate these spending habits, respondents were also asked about their largest lifetime purchases.
Figure 20: Largest lifetime purchase
There is a myth that AGU students are rich. It is well difficult to define richness, but what do our results make you consider the lifestyle of AGU students? Although not many AGU students are from poor families, they are not necessarily in a particularly privileged position, as they are expected to be independent, and university tuition is onerous for even well-to-do families. EIZY hopes the survey and article help you gain a better understanding of AGU students’ life today, and will continue providing information that matters to AGU students.
(Further analysis is planned to be published in future issues)
