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Japan: 

Poll: 70% Want Drastic Reforms to National Pension System

By Yomiuri Shimbun

May 25, 2004

More than 70 percent of eligible voters want to see the national pension system drastically reformed, according to a nationwide survey conducted over the weekend by The Yomiuri Shimbun. 

Seventy-one percent of those polled said they wanted to see the current pension system drastically reformed, including the integration of the different systems. 

Seventy percent of those surveyed said they did not trust the pension systems, 6 percentage points higher than in a similar survey conducted in January. 
The results are the worst of six such surveys conducted since 1997. 

The increase was attributed to anxiety and distrust caused by the nation's lawmakers failing to join or pay into the national pension system, as well as dissatisfaction over the deliberations on pension reform bills in the current Diet session. 

In response to whether drastic reforms of pension plans should be carried out, those who said yes or maybe totaled 71 percent. Seventy percent of those who responded positively also said the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) should fundamentally review the pension system much earlier than their goal of March 2007. 

Meanwhile, 62 percent of those asked said they had no expectations of new Minshuto President Katsuya Okada, while only 33 percent said they had confidence in him. 

Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed said they supported the Cabinet, down 0.2 percentage point from a survey conducted in April. About 31 percent said they did not support the Cabinet. 

Of 3,000 people questioned around the country in face-to-face interviews Saturday and Sunday, 1,868 made valid answers. Of those, 48 percent were men and 52 percent were women. 


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