science

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare rather than just read about it. In short: The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省, Kōsei-rōdō-shō; lit. 'Ministry of Health and Labour'; MHLW) is a cabinet-level ministry of the Japanese government. It is commonly known as Kōrō-shō (厚労省) in Japan.

Key takeaways

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省, Kōsei-rōdō-shō; lit. 'Ministry of Health and Labour'; MHLW) is a cabinet-level ministry of the Japanese government. It is commonly known as Kōrō-shō (厚労省) in Japan. The ministry provides services on health, labour and welfare. The Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare is a member of the Cabinet and is chosen by the Prime Minister, typically from among members of the Diet.

History It was formed with the merger of the former Ministry of Health and Welfare or Kōsei-shō (厚生省) and the Ministry of Labour or Rōdō-shō (労働省) in January 2001.

Organization The ministry contains the following sections as of 2019:

The Minister's Secretariat (including the Statistics and Information Department) The Health Policy Bureau The Health Service Bureau Pharmaceutical and Food Safety Bureau (including the Food Safety Department) The Labour Standards Bureau (including the Industrial Safety and Health Department, Workers Compensation Department, and Workers' Life Department) The Employment Security Bureau (including the Employment Measures for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities Department) The Human Resources Development Bureau The Equal Employment, Children and Families Bureau The Social Welfare and War Victims' Relief Bureau (including the Department of Health and Welfare for People with Disabilities) The Health and Welfare Bureau for the Elderly The Health Insurance Bureau The Pension Bureau The Director-General for Policy Planning and Evaluation Affiliated research institutions (6 research institutes, 218 national hospitals, 13 quarantine stations, and 3 Social Welfare Facilities) Councils (Social Security Council, Health Sciences Council, Labour Policy Council, Medical Ethics Council, Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Council, Evaluation Committee for Independent Administrative institutions, Central Minimum Wages Council, Labour Insurance Appeal Committee, Central Social Insurance Medical Council, Examination Committee of Social Insurance, Examination Committee for Certification of Sickness and Disability, Examination Committee for Relief Assistances) Regional Bureaus (8 Regional Bureaus of Health and Welfare and 47 Prefectural Labour Bureaus) Narcotics Control Department External Bureaus (Japan Pension Service, Central Labour Relations Commission)

Investigations

Highway tour bus companies After a fatal bus accident on April 29, 2012, where a bus bound for Tokyo Disneyland crashed in Gunma Prefecture killing seven and injuring 39 others, the ministry launched an investigation into highway bus companies. Investigations were carried out at a total of 339 businesses. It was discovered that 95.6% (324 firms) were violating the Labor Standards Law and the Industrial Safety and Health Law. 219 businesses (64.6%) broke the law by having their drivers work behind the wheel more than the legal maximum of eight hours a day and 40 hours a week, or longer than what was agreed upon with their labour union. It also found 37 businesses, (10.9%), did not provide "at least one day off a week," which the law obliges employers to give their drivers. Also, it found that 260 (76.6%) did not observe standards involving bus driver working hours, which prohibit them from working more than 16 hours a day in combined driving and office time. The ministry said it took "corrective measures" with those who violated the laws.

Criticism Published ministry employee and outspoken critic Moriyo Kimura states that the ministry's medical officers (ikei gikan) are "corrupt and self-serving." Kimura states that the officers, who number 250, have little experience and see no patients nor practice medicine after being hired by the ministry. Thus, says Kimura, Japan's public health policies lag behind other developed countries, by "decades".

See also European Medicines Agency U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

References

External links

Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

In research: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2001 establishments in Japan, Government ministries established in 2001, Labour in Japan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in simple terms?

Why does Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.