Analysis of the Welfare Pension Insurance Draft from Documents of the Research Institute of National Policy

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Welfare Pension Insurance Draft, which was the original bill of the Workers’ Pension Insurance Act in Japan. This act was drafted by the Planning Division of the General Affairs Bureau in July 1939, based on the Planning Division’s 1938 pension plan. This study draws on historical documents such as the minutes of the Wartime Labor Measures Committee, published by the Research Institute of National Policy. The following three points became clear. First, the Planning Division’s 1938 pension plan was designed to solve social problems caused by the Great Depression. Second, although Hidefumi Kawamura, head of the Planning Division of the General Affairs Bureau, proposed the Welfare Pension Insurance Plan to replace the National Labor Adjustment Fund Plan, comprehensive unemployment insurance did not become a wartime labor policy. Third, the Welfare Pension Insurance Draft drafted by the Planning Division of the General Affairs Bureau in July 1939 embodies technical matters based on Kawamura’s Welfare Pension Insurance Plan, the purpose of which was to ensure livelihood stability by preventing lower-income citizens from falling into poverty. In proposing this draft, Kawamura’s Planning Division aimed to enact a permanent public pension.