Looking at households other than the elderly, while average income fell from 6.78 million yen in 2000 to 6.10 million yen in 2012, it subsequently rose to 6.59 million yen in 2018, prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. To bring prosperity to Japan's super-aging society as a whole, it will be crucial to further raise the income level of workers.
11  One of the unintended consequences of structural labor shortages is that employees will have greater power to choose which firm they wish to work for.