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Social welfare, assistance for the ill or otherwise disabled and for the old, has long been provided in Japan by both the government and private companies. Beginning in the 1920s, the government enacted a series of welfare programs, based mainly on European models, to provide medical care and financial support. During the postwar period, a comprehensive system of social security was gradually established. Government expenditures for all forms of social welfare increased from 6% of the national income in the early 1970s, to 18% in 1989. The mixture of public and private funding have created complex pension and insurance systems. But a much older tradition calls for support within the family and the local community. The futures of health and welfare systems in Japan are being shaped by the rapid aging of the population. Medical insurance, health care for the elderly, and public health expenses constituted about 60% of social welfare and social security costs in 1975, while government pensions accounted for 20%. By the early 1980s, pensions accounted for nearly 50% of social welfare and social security expenditures because people were living longer after retirement. A fourfold increase in workers' individual contributions was projected by the twenty-first century. ==Pension system== In Japan there are three types of Japanese national pensions arranged by the government and corporate organizations. ;The basic pension (Category I): Providing minimal benefits. The basic pension (premium is a fixed amount) ;A secondary part (Category II): Providing benefits, based on income up until retirement. Employees Pension Insurance, Mutual Aid Pensions (Premium is a fixed percentage of monthly income) ;A third part: Company Pensions (Employees' Pension Fund, Tax-qualified Pension Plan. The premium depends on the organization) Enrollment in an employees' pension plan or a mutual-aid pension automatically enrolls you in the basic pension system as well. A major revision in the public pension system in 1986 unified several former plans into the single Employee Pension Insurance Plan. In addition to merging the former plans, the 1986 reform attempted to reduce benefits to hold down increases in worker contribution rates. It also established the right of women who did not work outside the home to pension benefits of their own, not only as a dependent of a worker. Everyone aged between twenty and sixty was a compulsory member of this Employee Pension Insurance Plan. Despite complaints that these pensions amounted to little more than "spending money," an increasing number of people planning for their retirement counted on them as an important source of income. Benefits increased so that the basic monthly pension was about US$420 in 1987, with future payments adjusted to the consumer price index. Forty percent of elderly households in 1985 depended on various types of annuities and pensions as their only sources of income. Some people are also eligible for corporate retirement allowances. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Welfare in Japan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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