Japan is going to be a esuperf aged society in the 21st century. One of the biggest questions facing Japan is how a family can support its elderly members and to what extent the family should be responsible for their care. The purpose of this paper, which represents part of the effort to respond to and address the needs of an aged society, is to examine the current trends in mutual support and assistance between parents and their adult children. Special focus has been given to care and assistance provided by adult children to their parents. The study uses recent research data and compares it with trends in other countries.
In Japanese society, the physical space and substance of care between the generations has traditionally been more intimate than in many other western societies. In other words, care for parents has, in most cases, meant physical care by living with parents in the same house (co-residence). In this context, the paper attempts to analyze the determinants of living arrangements that form the foundation of the care and assistance provided by the child generation to the parent generation.
The study found that the determinants of parent-adult children co-residence are mainly normative factors such as the position in the sibling compositions. In fact, low-income families show higher rates of co-residence with their parents than high-income families. This suggests that greater choice is available with greater economic means.
The socialization of care provision is being promoted with the introduction of the Long-Term Care Insurance System in April 2000. If co-residence with parents is determined by economic factors as well as normative factors, and co-residence is indispensable in providing care to old parents, the issue must be handled very carefully, paying special attention to the status of traditional family care provision.
The whole documents of the paper above is provided in Portable Document Format (PDF).
Acrobat Reader is required to read the document. Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free by clicking the following icon.
Please click the following icon
to view this paper.
