Published papers

'Over the past three decades, the wellbeing of people over retirement age has improved, not only absolutely but also relatively. Being old is no longer synonymous with being poor. This improvement has occurred across almost all of the main OECD countries, and has occurred almost regardless of the type of pension system that is operating in the country concerned. This paper seeks to illustrate the importance or other wise of the nature of the public-private mix in incomes in old age both in producing this improvement in wellbeing and in leading to differences in the level of wellbeing enjoyed by different types of person. It draws from a number of studies undertaken at the Social Policy Division of the OECD in the course of 2000 and 2001, many of which have been reported upon in OECD (2001) and Yamada and Casey (2002). The paper is available from .'

'Ageing involves not one but several transitions. People move from working to not working, from relying upon labour income to relying on transfers. They also tend to live in smaller households, not only because any children will have moved away but also because, at some stage, a spouse dies. People move homes and sometimes they move back to live with their now grown-up children. This paper examines the wellbeing of people as they pass through the later stages of their life and through different labour market statuses and domestic statuses. It examines and compares nine countries - Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. It draws particularly from a special analysis of micro-data sets that report on incomes, but it complements this with an analysis of data on wealth, on consumption, on housing and on the use of in-kind services provided by the state. The paper is available from .'

介護保険の導入の変化は、医療施設と介護施設の関係を変化させているばかりでなく、介護施設間の階層的構造を通じて複雑な影響を与えているものと考えられている。こうした影響についての知見を得るために、介護施設の中でも、自治体の各種モデル事業の受け入れ先として、とりわけ先進的な介護を行っている三施設にてヒアリングを行った。本稿は、そのヒアリング報告である。

Willem ADEMA氏のOECD報告書の翻訳。公的社会支出ばかりでなく、私的社会支出や社会目的での租税控除などを広義の社会支出を定義（＝純社会支出）し、その数値を推計し国際比較している。その結果、各国の純社会支出の差異は、公的社会支出の差異よりも小さくなることを発見している。より入手可能。

スウェーデンにおいて行政でどのようにマイクロシミュレーションが利用されているか、またどのように構築されているかについて、スウェーデン財務省に１週間滞在した経験に基づき解説した。

経済協力開発機構(OECD)におけるプロジェクト「引退期所得政策の9ヶ国比較研究」での成果の一部を発表。具体的には、(1)引退期所得の置換率平均は9ヶ国でほぼ等しいこと、(2)過去10年間において所得構成の変化は高所得者層でしかみられないこと、(3)日米で就労所得が引退期においても大きな比重を占めること、(4)高齢者関係の社会的支出は55歳以上の就労比率に大きく依存すること、などを示した。

'This article examines the changing economic position of Japanese older people during half of the latest economic recession period (1989‐1995), using micro data from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Condition of the People on Health and Welfare. The Quasi Public Assistance Standard (QPAS), which is based on the administrative minimum cost of living standard guaranteed by the Constitution, is applied as a benchmark and an equivalence scale. The growth of administrative minimum cost of living standard relative to other social security benefits, consumer price index and wage growth are also examined. Special attention is also paid to lone-parent households in the context of comparison with older households in the analysis. There are four main findings; (1) Income inequality among older households is higher among others, although the working income is generally main contributor for it, reflecting the high labour force participation rate of older people. (2) However, among single female older households, the main contributor to inequality is social transfer. (3) The below-QPAS proportion among single female older households exceeds 10% and is the highest among the older households, but this number is much lower than that of lone-parent households. (4) The growth rate of administrative minimum cost of living standard is higher than that of consumer price index, although lower than wage growth rate on average, but there are certain differences by household type and residential area. These findings suggest that how to precisely target on economically disadvantaged older households could be a key question for the next pension reform. This paper is available from .'