SOCIAL SECURITY IN JAPAN

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27642, 26 April 1955, Page 3

SOCIAL SECURITY IN JAPAN

Unified Scheme Proposed

EXPERT STUDYING N.Z. SYSTEM "The Press’* Special Service WELLINGTON, April 25.

A Japanese expert on social security and social insurance, Mr Senichiro Uchino, has arrived in Wellington to study New Zealand’s social security system. Mr Uchino said Japan was planning a comprehensive social security scheme under one Ministry. At present there were 10 separate social insurance schemes, all compulsory, covering various classes of workers. Mr Uchino is an assistant section chief in the Japanese Ministry of Health. He will spend two months in Wellington for discussions with officers of the Health and Social Security Departments, and also hopes to have talks with the president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, and members of the dental and pharmaceutical professions. A law graduate of Tokyo Imperial University, Mr Uchino has been with the Japanese Ministry of Health for more than 20 years. He is the author of several books on social security and social insurance.

Commenting on life in Japan, Mr Uchino said food of all varieties was plentiful, but prices, particularly of rice, were so high that only the rich could afford to eat what they liked. There Jiad been a great revival of interest in Christianity among young people in Japan, Mr Uchino said. He would be baptised by the Seventh-day Adventist Church on his return to Tokyo. Communism, on the other hand, had been driven into the background.