IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jid/journl/y2007v16i3-4p88-109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare Use in Japan: Trends and Determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Wataru Suzuki

    (Tokyo Gakugei University)

  • Yanfei Zhou

    (Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training)

Abstract

This article represents the first step in filling a large gap in knowledge concerning why Public Assistance (PA) use recently rose so fast in Japan. Specifically, we try to address this problem not only by performing a Blanchard and Quah decomposition on long-term monthly time series data (1960:04-2006:10), but also by estimating prefecturelevel longitudinal data. Two interesting findings emerge from the time series analysis. The first is that permanent shock imposes a continuously positive impact on the PA rate and is the main driving factor behind the recent increase in welfare use. The second finding is that the impact of temporary shock will last for a long time. The rate of the use of welfare is quite rigid because even if the PA rate rises due to temporary shocks, it takes about 8 or 9 years for it to regain its normal level. On the other hand, estimations of prefecture-level longitudinal data indicate that the Financial Capability Index (FCI) of the local government2 and minimum wage both impose negative effects on the PA rate. We also find that the rapid aging of Japan's population presents a permanent shock in practice, which makes it the most prominent contribution to surging welfare use.

Suggested Citation

  • Wataru Suzuki & Yanfei Zhou, 2007. "Welfare Use in Japan: Trends and Determinants," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 16(3-4), pages 88-109, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:jid:journl:y:2007:v:16:i:3-4:p:88-109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jid.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jid/article/view/7232
    Download Restriction: Some fulltext downloads are only available to subscribers. See JID website for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hayashi, Masayoshi, 2014. "Forecasting welfare caseloads: The case of the Japanese public assistance program," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 105-114.
    2. YUGAMI Kazufumi & MORIMOTO Atsushi & TANAKA Yoshiyuki & MATSUMOTO Kodai, 2017. "Welfare Benefits and Labor Supply: Evidence from a natural experiment in Japan," Discussion papers 17109, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    3. Michio Yuda, 2018. "The medical assistance system and inpatient health care provision: Empirical evidence from short-term hospitalizations in Japan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Ando, Michihito & Furuichi, Masato & Kanayama, Hayato, 2023. "Discontinuous or Kinked Response? Dynamics of Unemployment Insurance and Public Assistance under the COVID-19 Crisis," SocArXiv vs8tr, Center for Open Science.
    5. Masayoshi Hayashi, 2017. "Do Central Grants Affect Welfare Caseloads? Evidence from Public Assistance in Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1064, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    welfare use; aging; Blanchard-Quah decomposition; historical decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jid:journl:y:2007:v:16:i:3-4:p:88-109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Timm Boenke (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gyorkca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.