UK state pension: database

[kuma]

I’ve just realised that there is a wealth of statistical information regarding the UK state pension (and other benefits) available at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

This includes pension recipients by specific country per quarter, and data is also readily available for frozen and unfrozen countries as categories.

Some quick findings:

• Japan-resident recipients of the UK state pension have risen from 234 (May 2002) to 6,763 (August 2020), an almost 3,000% increase.

• Japan is currently one of the top 20 countries of UK state pension recipients (whether ‘frozen’ or ‘unfrozen’), ranking above Greece, Thailand and India.

• Among the frozen pension countries and territories, Japan currently has the 5th most UK state pension recipients:
  
  1. Australia: 223,234
  2. Canada: 127,118
  3. New Zealand: 64,054
  4. South Africa: 30,651
  5. Japan: 6,763
  6. Thailand: 5,320
  7. India: 4,276
  8. Pakistan: 2,715
  9. Hong Kong: 2,398
  10. Malaysia: 2,220

[beanhead]

All because of Ben? Wow...

[RetireJapan]

All because of Ben? Wow...

Heh, made my day

[RetireJapan]

We have told a lot of people about it, but that number is people receiving the pension, right, not contributing? I would guess it will continue to go up.

[goodandbadjapan]

I wonder if that does include those who are contributing because it seems quite high to me!

Found this on Wikipedia:
As of June 2014, according to data released by the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau, there were 14,914 people from the United Kingdom who were classified as either permanent or long-term residents in Japan.[1] Of this number 5,345 British citizens were living in Tokyo.[2]

Surely almost half of British PR holders or long-time residents can't be pension age! I don't think I've met a single one.

[kuma]

I wonder if that does include those who are contributing because it seems quite high to me!

Found this on Wikipedia:
As of June 2014, according to data released by the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau, there were 14,914 people from the United Kingdom who were classified as either permanent or long-term residents in Japan.[1] Of this number 5,345 British citizens were living in Tokyo.[2]

Surely almost half of British PR holders or long-time residents can't be pension age! I don't think I've met a single one.

I was surprised how high the number of UK pension recipients in Japan was, too.

There will be some Japanese nationals and third-country citizens resident in Japan who qualify for a UK state pension as well as British nationals resident in Japan. I have absolutely no idea what the ratios would be like between each group; the database doesn't include information on nationality.

Some data on Japan/UK nationals living in the other country as of 2016:

Number of Japanese nationals residing in UK: 64,969 (June, 2016)
Number of British nationals residing in Japan: 15,652 (June, 2016)
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/uk/data.html

If, for example, 5% of those 65,000 or so Japanese nationals in UK in 2016 are back in Japan now and drawing a UK state pension, that would account for about half of the Japan-resident UK state pension recipients. But that 5% is just a number plucked from the sky.

[goodandbadjapan]

I wonder if that does include those who are contributing because it seems quite high to me!

Found this on Wikipedia:
As of June 2014, according to data released by the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau, there were 14,914 people from the United Kingdom who were classified as either permanent or long-term residents in Japan.[1] Of this number 5,345 British citizens were living in Tokyo.[2]

Surely almost half of British PR holders or long-time residents can't be pension age! I don't think I've met a single one.

I was surprised how high the number of UK pension recipients in Japan was, too.

There will be some Japanese nationals and third-country citizens resident in Japan who qualify for a UK state pension as well as British nationals resident in Japan. I have absolutely no idea what the ratios would be like between each group; the database doesn't include information on nationality.

Some data on Japan/UK nationals living in the other country as of 2016:

Number of Japanese nationals residing in UK: 64,969 (June, 2016)
Number of British nationals residing in Japan: 15,652 (June, 2016)
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/uk/data.html

If, for example, 5% of those 65,000 or so Japanese nationals in UK in 2016 are back in Japan now and drawing a UK state pension, that would account for about half of the Japan-resident UK state pension recipients. But that 5% is just a number plucked from the sky.

That would make a bit more sense!

[kuma]

This Japanese government statistics site has some data on Japanese/British citizens living in the other country: http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenk ... 31-02.html

UK citizens residing in Japan
2015: 15,826
2016: 16,454
2017: 17,200

Japanese citizens residing in the UK
2015: 67,997
2016: 64,968
2017: 62,887