著者

香川 孝三

出版者

JAPAN SOCIETY FOR GENDER STUDIES

雑誌

日本ジェンダー研究 (ISSN:18841619)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, no.6, pp.27-40, 2003

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There are important problems about the public pension paid to female persons. The Japan pension system is a three-tiered, national pension scheme, employees' pension insurance and corporate pension scheme. The former two public pensions will be discussed in this article.<BR>The basic pension benefit is paid by the national pension scheme, while the additional pension benefits are paid through the employees' pension insurance scheme. The insurance premimum for these schemes is decided by the amount of wages or salaries. So the public pension has a strong connection with the wage system in Japan. The amount of wages is determined to sustain a worker's family including husband, wife and some children. That is to say, the wage system is based on the family unit. Therefore the public pension scheme is also based on the family unit. But it should be based on the individual unit in the future. For these purposes the wage system should be designed on the individual job and work performances.<BR>The Japanese model unit of a household is based on a working husband and housewife. The housewife is not required to pay any insurance premium by herself if she gets less than 1.3 million yen as total income per a year. But she can get the basic pension benefit. It seems unfair for female persons who must pay the insurance premium by themselves. It is necessary for her to bear the cost of the insurance scheme. It is now considered at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare whether to impose the burden on the housewife or her husband.<BR>When a housewife is divorced, she will be unable to maintain a living only with the basic pension benefit. She cannot use the additional pension benefit because it belongs to her ex-husband. So it is now planned to divide the additional pension benefits between husband and wife at the time of divorce.<BR>The limit of total income being less than 1.3 million yen per a year prevents female persons working in their full abilities.<BR>Female wages are in general lower than those of the male though wage discrimination on the basis of sex is subject to criminal penalties under Article 4 of the Fair Labour Standards Act providing that an employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment of a woman as compared with a man with respect to wages by reason of the worker being a woman. On average female wages are about 60% of male wages. This brings about lower pension benefits for female persons.<BR>In Japan wages are composed of three parts: basic wages, various kinds of allowances and bonuses. Basic wages are decided on age, continuous service years, work ability, level of performance etc. There is no uniform level of wages according to the type of job or work. Therefore it is very difficult to apply the principle of "the same work, the same pay" to Japanese establishments. But proper proportionate wage differences should be kept between regular and part- time workers. This is a prerequisite for making a scheme of public pension based on the individual unit, not on the household unit.