The ILO defines social security expenditure as all of the schemes or services which meet the following three criteria:
(i) The objectives of the schemes must be- a) to grant curative or preventive
medical care; b) to maintain income in case of involuntary loss of earnings
or of an important part of earnings; or c) to grant a supplementary income
to persons having family responsibilities.
(ii) The system must have been set up by legislation which attributes
specified individual rights to, or which imposes specified obligations
on, a public, semi-public or autonomous body.
(iii) The system should be administered by a public, semi-public or autonomous
body.
However, where the liability for the compensation of employment injuries
is imposed directly on the employer, the schemes for employment injury
compensation are included in the scope of social security expenditure even
if they do not meet criterion iii) above.
On the basis of the criteria listed above, the following schemes are
included in these statistics: social insurance (including unemployment
insurance and employment injury compensation insurance), family allowances,
special schemes for public employees, public health service, public assistance,
social welfare schemes, and aid for war victims.
Social security expenditure is based on the above ILO standards and is estimated in each fiscal year budget for expenditure in each system of social security in Japan (see pages 19-22, Table 7, "The cost of social security in fiscal year 1996 according to ILO standards"). Since 1949, the ILO has conducted 18 international inquiries on the cost of social security, and has published social security expenses data submitted by various countries in "The Cost of Social Security" (data up to FY1993 included). The nineteenth international inquiry (data from FY1994-1996), which gives a reassessment of a section of the standards and patterns of calculation, is currently being conducted.
See http://www.ilo.org/public/english/110secso/css/cssindex.htm
Japan's tables presented on the ILO web page is not identical to the ones we publish here. ILO eliminated Japan's data for "public health" from our original table for their own purposes. We cannot accept the elimination because "public health" includes all health care and disease prevention costs paid from general government budgets, and they must be included according to the ILO criteria i) (a) to grant curative and preventive medical care, above.
(i) Medical care includes medical services provided under various
health insurance schemes, health services system for the aged, medical
services for Workmen's Accident Compensation Insurance, medical services
for public assistance and government-financed special medical services,
such as the treatment of tuberculosis and mental disorders, public health
services, etc.
(ii) Pensions includes payments by all the public pension schemes
such as National Pensions, Employees' Pension Insurance, etc. It also includes
some cash benefits paid in the form of pensions within the scheme of gratuities
for retired civil servants and the scheme for Workmen's Accident Compensation
Insurance.
(iii) Welfare & Others includes public assistance other than
medical services, cash benefits for child allowance, expenses for social
welfare services, sickness and injury cash benefits within the health insurance
schemes, leave compensation benefits paid by the Workmen's Accident Compensation
Insurance, unemployment benefits from Employment Insurance, etc.