Culture Clash: Social Security

I have gotten my first Culture Clash request from my uncle Hans. He proposed a number of questions and I hope to answer all of them in what I write below, but as always if you are still wondering about something then let me know and I will do my best to answer!

Because of recent failures in the American economy questions have sprung up all over the world as to how it is affecting other countries. Here in Japan the economy has been affected, “The government has noted a jump in layoffs in many industries, especially heavily export-dependent sectors including the automobile and electronics industries, while voluntary retirement among regular workers also is rising.” (Daily Yomiuri)
However in relation to the US dollar and other currencies the Yen has remained strong. The reason for this is that Japan has been averting risk. Instead of taking bold moves that might dramatically strengthen or weaken the Yen it has taken very small steps in a negative or weakening direction. Japan’s economy has gotten weaker, but compared to the US the progression hasn’t been nearly as fast. However the outlook is bearish and no one expects quick recovery on either side of the ocean.
On a side note I wanted to say something else. The Federal Reserve in America, that institution that prints our money and raises and lowers interest rates, they are not government owned. It is quasi public, meaning that while it is a government institution it is not government owned. Personally I see this as creating a conflict of interest between the public and private investors.

Now on to public healthcare and welfare in Japan. Japan does have social welfare. Japan also has public assistance programs benefiting about 1% of the population. About 33% of recipients are elderly people, 45% were households with sick or disabled members, and 14% are fatherless families, and 8% are in other categories.
For instance, fatherless mothers get about 40,000 yen a month per child and depending on where they live might receive other assistance like housing. From what I have seen there aren’t too many people who abuse this, like in other countries, and end up with many children and no job. Japan’s population is actually on a sharp decline, which brings up a whole host of other social security problems.
An elderly person’s pension is dependable one where or how long they or their relative/spouse worked. A retired person’s main pension usually comes from the company they worked for. The Japanese government pension system provides benefits to insured persons or their survivors, when they retire from their working-lives, become handicapped, or die. A character of Japanese public pension system is the universal coverage of Japanese population by social insurance pay-as-you-go scheme. The pension from the government is about 50,000 yen per month. Which is not a lot, my rent is about 55,000 yen a month. I have seen some TV programs about this, but couldn’t get anymore than that some people were upset that the payment was so low.
As for people who “just don’t want to work” there are a few categories that they may fit into. In Japan there are people called NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). As far as I can gather there is no government support for these people in the form of payment, but the government does provide counseling and training to them if requested.

As I see it the system here works pretty well. Like everywhere else there are people who abuse it, but it seems to me that in Japan that happens less. Japanese society has giri, a sense of social obligations and amae, the concept of dependance. Both of these largely influence how people view themselves and the society they live in, but to explain these concepts further I will write another blog later.