| dc.description.abstract | Populations are rapidly aging in many developed nations including Japan. Providing care for the elderly is one of the major social problems facing Japanese society. Exacerbating the demographic problem of the aging population, Japanese family structure has shifted from a traditional multigenerational household to the modern nuclear household. This change significantly impacts caregiving for both the elderly and children. To accommodate the aging population Japanese government agencies have developed elderly care policies. These policies cover a wide variety of needs of the elderly ranging from medical care to daily living. However, policies have not been adequately developed to address the rising economic costs and social burden of raising children in the context of nuclear families in modern Japan.
I use Japanese General Social Survey data from 2002 and 2012 to analyze people’s attitudes towards elderly and child care. Four outcomes are investigated; people’s attitudes towards responsibilities of livelihood security for elderly, elderly care, education, and child care. The answers are coded on a range from 1, individuals and families’ responsibility, to 5, governments’ responsibility. This study finds that the age group of 35 to 65 believes both elderly care and child care to be governments’ responsibility compare to other age groups in both 2002 and 2012. The age group of 66-90 believes elderly care to be the individual’s responsibility compared to the middle age group. Females tend to believe elderly livelihood security and education to be the individual’s responsibility in 2012. Although chi-square tests show that respondents in 2012 believe in the socialization of care more than respondents in 2002, the results of ordered logit regression and t-tests show that the effect of age group, gender, and being a parent do not explain the change across this time period. | en |
