On fifty million floating pension records in Japan

Abstract

There arose a serious pension record-keeping problem in Japan in May 2007. Around 50 million records of social security pension records were found to be floating, not having been integrated into the unified pension numbers. The pending records are due to human errors made by enrolees, their employers and agencies. There has been no integrated collection of taxes and social security contributions in Japan, and additionally no monitoring organisations were effectively implemented in pension administration. The general public was under the illusion that government officials were able to do and did everything correctly without making any mistakes. However, human errors are inevitable anywhere. Regular and prompt examinations over possible errors are required for proper record-keeping of pensions. When a no-match is identified, an interactive notification and responding correction with confirmation should follow in due course. A trustworthy government with its competent and neat implementation is, thus, the basis for any pension system. © 2009 The International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics.