Living with your spouse and two kids in Japan’s former capital sounds nice, but is it affordable?

While individual budgets vary, a general rule of thumb for “How much money do I need to earn for a decent life in Japan?” is somewhere around 250,000 yen (about US$2,300) a month. Granted, you won’t get rich or put away a ton of savings with that level of income, but it’s enough to have your own bachelor/bachelorette apartment within an hour commute of a downtown city center, pay for bills and groceries, and go out for moderately-priced entertainment on the weekends.

But what if you’re thinking of setting up not a base for your solo-lifestyle Japanese adventures, but a long-term home for you, your spouse, and your kids? How much would you need then, specifically if you wanted to make Kyoto your new family home?

To investigate, labor advocacy organization Kyoto Sohyo recently conducted a study, surveying union members and families, to calculate how much a family of four, consisting of a married couple and two kids, would need to earn each month for a “normal life,” the parameters for which included:

● A rental condominium in Kyoto City’s Fushimi Ward (a popular community for families with children) with between 43 and 50 square meters (463-538 square feet) of floor space
● Sending the children to a private kindergarten, public elementary, middle, and high schools
● Sending the oldest child to a private university in Kyoto once the couple is in their 50s
● Owning and maintaining a used car
● The working spouse going to one drinking party a month (costing 4,000 yen)
● The family taking one day trip per month (costing 5,000 yen total)
● Required tax and social security payments

Once it tallied all of its data up, Kyoto Sohyo said that while the couple is in their 30s, they would need a monthly household income of 486,900 yen (US$4,510). That figure climbs to 549,800 once the couple is in their 40s, and rises higher still to 707,500 yen per month when the couple is in their 50s. Specifically, the published results refer to those figures as “necessary living expenses and wage levels,” and unfortunately do not specify whether or not they include any additional money being put int the family’s bank account or otherwise saved beyond required social security payments.

“It is nearly impossible for non-regular workers to support a family. Raising wages is necessary,” said Kyoto Sohyo while announcing the results. However, it’s worth pointing out that Japan’s economic system has never been structured with the goal of allowing people to work only part-time while supporting their family (an aspect in which the country is hardly alone). As such, it’s unlikely that Japanese employers will be bumping wages up to such a level, or be required to do so by the government, anytime soon, so the warning about the difficulty of caring for a family without regular employment is one to heed if you’re thinking of moving to Kyoto.

Sources: Mainichi Shimbun via Livedoor News via Hachima Kiko, Kyoto Sohyo
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s not sure if his life in Japan qualifies as “normal” or not.