Estimation of Japan’s Social Expenditure by OECD standards


The Social Expenditures were previously put together according to International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, and were an important indicator of changes from the past situation; however, data for this standard from the various countries has not been updated since 1996.

On the other hand, although its scope is somewhat different, the Social Security Expenditure for the OECD standard makes public relatively up-to-date annual data from the various countries, and therefore this report has since last year contained the OECD's estimations.

The scope of the OECD standard of Social Expenditure is broader than that of the ILO, and it includes the figures for expenditure not directly spent on individuals, such as expenditure on equipping facilities.

Japan’s Social Expenditure by OECD standards

According to the OECD standards, Japan’s Social Expenditure in 2007 was 98.8 trillion yen. Looking at the different policy areas, expenditure on “Old age” was the greatest at 47.0 trillion yen (47.6%), followed by, in order, “Health” at 32.3 trillion yen (32.7%) and “Survivors“ at 6.7 trillion yen (6.7%).

Reference Table 1 Trends in Japanese social expenditure
Reference table 1 Trends in Japanese social security expenditure

Notes:
1.
Figures within brackets, ( ), represent the percentage of total expenditure.
2.
The column showing “Rate of increase compared with the previous year” for percentage of national income and GDP, shows the rate at which these areas have increased in comparison with the previous year (Unit: percentage points).
Source:
OECD Social Expenditure Database 2010 ed.
(http://www.oecd.org/els/social/expenditure)

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