Welfare in Japan
Social welfare, assistance for the ill or otherwise disabled and the old, has long been provided in Japan by both the government and private companies.
Beginning in the 1920s, the Japanese government enacted a series of welfare programs, based mainly on European models, to provide medical care and financial support.
The mixture of public and private funding has created complex pension and insurance systems, meshing with Japanese traditional calls for support within the family and by the local community for welfare recipients.
The social policy became a platform of electoral strategies only in the 1980s and 1990s, which happened after Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its domination in the parliament in 1993.
Finally, the Japanese government provided social care programs to the elderly and children, along with the policy that promoted general equality.
The earliest Japanese idea of welfare first appeared in 1874 during the Meiji Period when Mercy and Relief Regulation introduced a cash allowance exclusively to orphans under 13, those who were unable to work due to illness, disabilities or old age and those who were under 15 or over 70 and lived in extreme poverty.
Owing to the oil shock and large government spending in social policy, Japan suffered from the deficit and recession.
The government tried to control the social expenditure by reforming the National Health Insurance and the public pension system.
In 2012, the government promoted a production-first policy, called Abenomics and redirected the attention from welfare and social protection to economic recovery.
In addition to merging the former plans, the 1986 reform attempted to reduce benefits to hold down increases in worker contribution rates.
Despite complaints that these pensions amounted to little more than "spending money," increasing numbers of people planning for their retirement counted on them as an important source of income.
About 90% of firms with thirty or more employees gave retirement allowances in the late 1980s, frequently as lump sum payments but increasingly in the form of annuities.
To address the lack of coverage for certain private sector employees, the National Pension law was passed in 1961 that set up a compulsory savings system requiring everyone from self-employers to the jobless to pay a flat-contribution rate on an individual basis for a flat-rate benefits package.
Generally, cars and motorbikes (unless found to be beneficial in seeking work), as well as items such as high-end televisions, expensive musical instruments, and designer goods must be sold.
Citizens are required to be enrolled in a public health insurance system plan which vary depending on employment status and/or residency.
[20] The three different types of insurances in Japan's health-care system have medical services paid by employees, employers, non-employed, and the government.
The premium of the NHI varies because it is based on the income and the number of people insured within the household, but usually it is 2% of the average wage.
Minimum wage levels have been determined, according to both region and industry, by special councils composed of government, labor, and employment representatives.
Since the 1980s, the government has established several laws to gradually promote women's social status and gender equality.
In the same year, Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryotaro recognized gender-equal social policy as an indispensable theme in his speech to the Council for Gender Equality.
In 1998, the Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities reduced the restrictions for non-profit feminine groups to acquire legal status.
However, in actual practice, foreign permanent residents with no legal restrictions preventing them from working in Japan are allowed to receive welfare payments.
In 2011, this de facto situation was upheld by a Fukuoka High Court decision in favor of a 79-year-old Chinese woman with permanent resident status who had been denied social welfare payments by the Oita city government.
