Social Security Reforms and Inequality in Japan
We examined the heterogeneous impacts of social security reforms in Japan over the past 40 years. We utilize a nationwide large-scale micro-dataset to compute individual-level social security wealth (SSW) and mortality rates by lifetime earning groups. We found that SSW declined for all groups after the social security reforms, which aimed to reduce generosity; however, the size of the negative impact was larger for richer individuals. These results indicate that a series of recent social security reforms have reduced inequality in SSW.
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Copy CitationTakashi Oshio, Satoshi Shimizutani, and Akiko Oishi, Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: The Effects of Pension Reforms on the Income Distribution of Retirees (University of Chicago Press, 2025), chap. 7, https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/social-security-programs-and-retirement-around-world-effects-pension-reforms-income-distribution/social-security-reforms-and-inequality-japan.Download Citation
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