What Factors Determine How the Benefits and Burdens of Social Security Are Chosen? Individual consciousness and the role of education (Japanese)

In this paper, we analyze the influence of individual consciousness such as trust and civicness on their preferences for policy choices regarding tax and social security by using the results of the questionnaire. In particular, looking into the characteristics of people who prefer an expansion of social security without increasing taxes, they have lower trust and civicness but depend more on the government and are skeptical of the market economy, compared to those who take into consideration of the consistency of fiscal balance between benefits and burdens of social security. For the former, their years of education are comparatively less, and they earn a lower hourly income as well as lower relative income. These results suggest that trust of the government, employment opportunities, civicness, and education, which includes understanding of the market economy, are important in maintaining sustainability in fiscal balance and the social security system.