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Abstract

Vol. 57, No. 4, pp. 344-357 (2006)

“An Econometric Analysis of the Uninsured in the Japanese National Pension and the National Health Insurance Systems”
Michio Yuda (Graduate Student of Economics, Hitotsubashi University and Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)

The presence of uninsured in the Japanese social insurances system will cause their own financial deterioration and problems for the entire Japanese social security system. I analyze the characteristics of those uninsured by the Japanese National Pension and National Health Insurance systems in terms of both the participation and the uninsured duration. The main results of the empirical analysis using individual data from the “Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers”, are as follows. Firstly, the increase of the premiums does not affect the uninsured duration but does affect participation in both social insurance systems. Secondly, participating in the one social insurance system is not affected by participating in the other one. Thirdly, those who have the private insurances tend not to be among the uninsured. Moreover, the high uninsured rate among youths in the National Pension is not due to the gaps of the benefits and costs in generations but due to their young age.