1 1960年代における児童手当論の一端 : 「社会手当」をめぐる対立(III 投稿論文)

抄録

In the 1960s, the Japanese government and bureaucracy sought to introduce a child benefit program funded by both employees' and employers' contributions, while rejecting an alternate plan to fund children's benefits from general revenues. The plan to introduce employees' contributions, which was blocked by strong opposition from labor, has now been redesigned as a plan to introduce "social insurance for dependent children." This development shows that the importance of non-means-tested and noncontributory cash benefits has been often ignored in discussions on social policy in Japan. Bunji KONDO, an influential researcher of social policy, classified such noncontributory cash benefits in a category close to public assistance and argued that a form of social insurance based on employees' contributions as well as those of employers that benefited workers most. Furthermore, he considered that even child benefits were similar to such forms of insurance, before World War II and in the postwar days up to the 1960's. I would like to point that KONDO's discussions are among the backdrops of the recent odd proposal to replace the current child benefit with "social insurance for dependent children" for which there is no precedent elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, the labor movement in the 1960s did not launch strong campaigns for child benefit programs based only on general revenues. It is not only because it seemed impossible then, but also because labor tended to support benefits based on employers' unilateral contributions. At that time, benefits based on such contributions were regarded as more advantageous for workers, as they channeled portions of profits into worker incomes. However, in other countries, it has been recognized that child benefit programs based on employer contributions have an effect only on horizontal income re-distribution, while child benefit programs funded only by general revenues affect both vertical and horizontal income re-distribution. It is also argued that the former tends to function more strongly to lower wages than the latter. I argue that the Japanese labor movement should reconsider its preference for child benefit programs based on employer contributions, recognizing their gender-biased character and vulnerability to cost-cutting pressures from employers and big business.