Social Insurance Agency

The Social Insurance Agency (社会保険庁, Shakaihoken-chō) was an agency administered by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. After a scandal involving millions of lost pension records, on January 1, 2010 it was abolished and replaced by the Japan Pension Service.[1] It was responsible for four types of social insurance

  • Employees’ Health Insurance
  • Seamens' Insurance
  • Employees’ Pension Insurance
  • The National Pension.[2]

Pension records problem

The Social Insurance Agency computerized their records in 1979[3] and in 1997 the SIA attempted to integrate three different databases together.[4] Numerous problems resulted from this and in May 2007 it was exposed by the then-opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan that 50 million pre-1997 premium payers could not be matched to any citizen enrolled in the system.[5] The then-ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, subsequently suffered a loss in the 2007 election, which was partly attributed to the pension scandal.[6]

By January 2010, 14 million of these 50 million records had been consolidated with an existing pension number.[7]

References
  1. Japan Pension Service website English information Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on November 24th 2010
  2. Social Insurance Agency website Agency Structure Retrieved on November 23rd 2010
  3. The Japan Times website Bloated bureaucracy exposed Retrieved November 24th 2010
  4. The Japan Times website Special panel to investigate pension fiasco Retrieved November 24th 2010
  5. The Japan Times website Poll-wary ruling bloc gropes to fix pension fiasco Retrieved November 24th 2010
  6. The Japan Times website Ruling coalition suffers huge defeat Retrieved November 24th 2010
  7. International Social Security Association website Establishment of the “Japan Pension Service” Retrieved on November 24th 2010


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