This is the 300th article of the column.
Today, when it comes to Japan's pension problem, the advantages of the world's longest-lived countries should not be regarded as a problem, especially the pension itself should be a stage in life, not a problem.
Japan is a country with a relatively high degree of aging in the world, and its average life expectancy of 84 years is also the world's largest. Japan's elderly population over the age of 65 has reached an all-time high of 29.1%, and is about to reach the 30% mark, which means almost 30%, becoming the country with the highest degree of aging in human history. The study refers to the situation of the elderly in the future society of a country, but in fact, Japan is an object of practice.
There are many examples of the emergence of an aging society in Japan, and those that are particularly well done are worth learning from, and there are also problems that have already been presented for reference in other countries. And many social problems boil down to economic problems, Japan as a developed country, per capita GDP reached 40,000 US dollars, per capita income is 4.58 million yen (about 40,000 US dollars more), is a proper high-income country; can be compared with the same period of China's per capita GDP leverage exceeded 10,000 US dollars, of course, when it comes to per capita, Japan and we have a "averaged" concept.
Since the social situation of the elderly is also a reflection of economic problems, at the same time, the wealth gap between per capita wealth and actual individuals affects the pension methods of the elderly in Japan; Japan's NHK television station has tracked and investigated the lives of the elderly poor in Japan for many years (this series of reports includes all levels of society, as well as women's special topics, and later collected and published), which also includes the topic of old-age care, which also makes people sigh that even if such a developed economy has facilities and systems, But the effect of landing is very different.
On the one hand, aging, on the other hand, there is a low birthrate, which add up to our neighbors Japan and South Korea at the same time, and in this matter, they are properly walking ahead of us to give us a way. South Korea's birth rate is already as low as 0.64 percent, and Japan's birth rate is around 1.3 percent; it is no small distance from the 2.1 percent fertility rate that can sustain the population, according to the United Nations. This is not a good thing, but the reasons behind it are not necessarily all bad things, at least we can't say anything special to refute it.
Aging and low birthrate combine to exacerbate the seriousness of the problem of old-age care, and the reasons for the prevalence are as follows:
(a) Universal access to education and extension of educational duration;
2. Industrialization and urbanization process;
3. Increase in life expectancy;
4. Improvement of women's social status;
Social mobility and freedom are higher, and people can choose to flow to large cities with more opportunities.
You see it is all good, in a society where people have more choices and more security, the degree of freedom is greater, and everyone's pension seems to be a paradox that the times and society have to face, and the challenge is greater. We can't always say that young people should stay in small places to get married and have children, and women should not leave their hometowns to choose big cities, but marry early and have children, which are contrary to the basic freedom of choice that people vote with their feet, and freedom is the greatest political correctness in the world today.
And at this time, Japan also provided us with another argument: the housing prices we are concerned about are not the main driving force for the elderly and the decline in birthrate. For example, housing prices in Hokkaido and even parts of Honshu Island in Japan are not too high, but there is still population loss and fertility decline, Hokkaido is the second largest island in Japan, but the population is only more than five million, which is just enough to reach a large city in China. So much so that in some parts of Japan, as long as you are willing to move in, the local government gives the house for free and provides the cost of renovation, but this has not reversed the situation. Think about cities such as Hegang and Zhangye, which we have been on the hot search in recent years, the house price is three or four thousand, but the birth rate does not necessarily catch up with the domestic average.
Today, Japan's elderly people are the generation that experienced the rapid rise of the Japanese economy, that is, the Japanese in the Showa period (1926-1989), followed by the Heisei era (1989-2019), and now Japan's era name is Reiwa. The difference between these generations is that they have experienced rapid growth, asset bubbles and sharp increases in incomes, leaps in living standards and urbanization rates, and then suddenly turned sharply, creating a great contrast between the two generations.
In our memories today, Japan's development seems to be in the Showa era, all kinds of convenient urban facilities, all kinds of household appliances and car brands, are the envy of Chinese in the same period of that year, Japanese products were once so sought after, when we did not have, nor did we have the trouble of childbearing. In the Showa era, Japan's marriage rate and fertility rate were not at all the same as japan today, when one person could work to support the family and women basically became full-time wives, and it was common for a family of two or three children at that time.
Showa boys have become strugglers, under the system of annual merit sequences, the synchronization of the dividends of the times, the generation of success in the success of the success of the young people to play chicken blood is not less than we are now; the works of various management masters in Japan are still on the best-seller shelves of bookstores, many of which emphasize the ultimate effort. However, on the one hand, the Japanese management experience has become a masterpiece, on the other hand, the young people lie flat, and the phenomenon of "Heisei abandoned houses" in the back is popular, which occurred in the same period and is quite a bit of black humor.
Then, while Japan is aging, various otaku are rising, chasing anime at home, chasing girl groups, chasing dramas, playing games, and doing hand-made things, that is, there is no pursuit of love and marriage. At the same time, Japan has a much higher per capita income and minimum wage guarantee than ours, but it has to face the gap of pension expenditure, which is not only pension but also the input cost of various pension machines and facilities. As a result, Japan introduced low interest rates to stimulate the economy and consumption on the one hand during the tenure of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and on the other hand, raised the consumption tax rate by 10% twice to supplement the fiscal gap. At the same time, it has also embarked on the road of increasing subsidies for the birth of children.
The cost of passing on the cost of childbearing and raising offspring is through fiscal transfer payments, specifically the use of taxes to subsidize families with more offspring, in fact, the same is true for the elderly. Let's think about whether this is effective, this is an open topic, but at present, Japan and South Korea's practices, both subsidize childbirth, probably in the following ways:
1. Subsidize the income of women of childbearing age during pregnancy, and at the same time require enterprises to pay certain costs and maintain jobs;
2. Subsidize the cost of pregnancy to childbirth, and give 420,000 yen (about 23,000 yuan) to give birth to a child;
3. The subsidy for raising children is given every month from birth to 15 years old. Moreover, both men and women have parental leave, of course, according to the Japanese society, the proportion of men taking this leave is very low, and the data in 2017 is about 5%.
But do such subsidies really work? When we discuss the high cost of raising offspring, we have been talking about subsidies, but it is difficult to achieve fertility through subsidies, as the saying goes, money cannot buy everything, it seems that fertility is also money can not buy, or money is not enough. However, the expenditure of the pension is also a problem of insufficient money, the pension represents the value of society for the present, and raising children is the judgment of the future.
The combination of pension and fertility rate cannot be separated, because the source of pension is also economic development and production, and this requires someone to develop the economy and pay pensions, pensions have a lot of accumulation, payment methods, but basically do not get rid of the pay-as-you-go system. Many people say that our country is like this, that is, the money paid by people who work now is the money for the pension of retired people in the same period, so it is called pay-as-you-go; in fact, this is not our case, from the perspective of economic development and income, inflation and social development determine that the source of pension cannot be achieved through a simple bit of principal savings investment, because you first have to have this pool of funds, and then maintain its size as much as possible to cope with more and more people receiving pension benefits.
Of course, there is another way that Japan is engaged in at the same time we also have some people want to learn from: housing for the elderly. Of course, this article directly poured cold water, which lacks the possibility of widespread promotion. No gossip, to the housing pension mentioned this matter, everyone appeared in front of the media to live alone under the knee of the elderly no children or children are not around, and then the old man died in the house to send nannies and other cases, first said that it can only be a case.
This article is about the housing pension is the Japanese model, simply put, the house as a guarantee mortgage, and then get a sum of money, can come from a government agency or may be a private organization, and then receive money on a monthly basis, up to 80% of the house appraisal price of the money for the homeowner's life. Note that this money is to be repaid, the house is mortgaged, if it is not repaid, the house will be paid to the institution that pays for the pension, of course, this pension is disguised financing, if the guarantor returns the money to the house in the future, it can stay. In this case, it is clear at a glance that the guarantors are all children and can obtain the parents' property.
The following are examples of Tokyo's housing pension application conditions: 1. The applicant must be over 65 years old, 2. The applicant must reside in a dwelling in which he or she holds the property rights 3. The composition of family members cannot exceed the scope of singles, couples and parents of both spouses, that is to say, there can be no children living together 4. The per capita income of the applicant's family must also be below the local low income standard 5. Families who have applied for the welfare policy such as the minimum guarantee are not yet eligible for this policy. 6. The house held by the applicant must be a single-family building with a land value of more than 15 million yen (about 1.2 million yuan), and the collective house cannot be applied for After the examination is approved, the applicant can receive less than 300,000 yen per month for living expenses, but the total amount cannot exceed 70% of the value of the mortgaged house, and the loan period is until the loan amount reaches the upper limit of the total amount. Living expenses are paid every three months, and the interest rate of the loan is relatively low, about 3% per year. The repayment period of the loan is three months after the death of the applicant, and the guarantor is responsible for a one-time repayment.
Our pension path may not be to learn From Japan and South Korea, but it is possible to go through the same process, which is not small at the social and economic levels, we can first learn from it:
1, the value of the property fluctuations; the original mortgage of the property to obtain funds, but the house price is not rising all the way, now Japan's house prices are still uneven, the land and house prices in big cities have begun to recover to the lost twenty years of Japanese economic bubble years, but the house prices in many areas have not appreciated or even depreciated. What happens when the price of collateral falls will make you either get less loans or have to replenish the collateral, we are not like Japan, not everyone has so big, so many, so expensive properties, and there is no guarantee that the house price will continue to rise in the next 30 years.
2, longevity; the people who are ridiculed in the paragraph are alive and the money is gone, indicating that the money has to keep up with the life span. It can be seen that only real estate can only be a supplement, and the appreciation of all assets is still a problem, which has to go back to economic development. Real estate supplement pension, how about the investment income of the pension itself, here is not a paragraph of things, recently the Japanese pension has been brought to the hot topic by Evergrande. Like pension funds in various countries, Japan's investment in various places to maintain appreciation, but there is a risk of investment, this time it will be heavy on Evergrande bonds, so you know.
The Government PensionInvestment Fund (GPIF) ranked 9th among Evergrande bond investors. The total investment is 9.67 billion yen (about 560 million yuan), of course, Japan said do not panic, this little money is not much, it can be seen that investment needs to be cautious; the world's largest pension fund is still so, you let individual investors how should they invest in their pension money, it is impossible to invest more and more aggressively with age, high risk and high return that is prone to hypertension in the first place.
3. Family views in East Asian countries and the desire of the elderly to leave property to their children. This is a similar cultural background, and it is still a question of whether the elderly and children are willing to mortgage the property.
Of course, at present, japanese relatives and friends, even if the independence between parents and children is getting stronger and stronger, the proportion of single-family families in large cities is even more than 40%, and many people in interviews with Japan's NHK TV station will not seek help from relatives in difficult situations, or are unwilling to help each other. There are even many elderly people who live alone and have no family to take care of the aftermath after they have gone silently, and even relatives, friends or children who can be contacted may not appear.
We are facing a similar situation as Japan is: the speed of social development is too fast has exceeded the degree to which one or two generations can adapt, whether it is a house for property, or the future generations who face the situation that they have no time to take care of their own pensions; as well as the follow-up pressure on pension expenditure caused by the rapid decline in the fertility rate at the macro level of society, etc. Pension is not difficult to find a way, but in such a short period of time, the entire society has evolved to have enough systems to support the pension welfare of modern people. Especially the dignified and quality of the elderly rear.
Old people and old people, but if our descendants are getting fewer and fewer, who will pay the pension? Especially when the birth population is getting smaller and smaller, then the cost of labor will rise sharply, just like today's developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan, how to pay for high maintenance costs with limited pensions, especially the pension is difficult to get rid of people's care and services.
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