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Japan Age Stratification and the Elderly
Another key principle in the stratification of Japanese
society
is age. "Acting one's age" may be more important in Japan
than in
some other societies, resulting in relatively narrow
age-ranges for
such life cycle-events as university education, first job,
or
marriage. This pattern fits with the value placed on
playing social
roles appropriately.
Old age ideally represents a time of relaxation of
social
obligations, assisting with the family farm or business
without
carrying the main responsibility, socializing, and
receiving
respectful care from family and esteem from the community.
In the
late 1980s, high (although declining) rates of suicide
among older
people and the continued existence of temples where one
could pray
for quick death indicated that this ideal was not always
fulfilled.
Japan has a national holiday called Respect for the Aged
Day, but
for most people it is merely another day for picnics or an
occasion
when the commuter trains run on holiday schedules. True
respect for
the elderly may be questioned when buses and trains carry
signs
above specially reserved seats to remind people to give up
their
seats for elderly riders. Although the elderly might not
have been
accorded generalized respect based on age, many older
Japanese
continued to live full lives that included gainful
employment and
close relationships with adult children.
Although the standard retirement age in Japan
throughout most
of the postwar period was fifty-five, people aged
sixty-five and
over in Japan were more likely to work than in any other
developed
country in the 1980s. In 1987 about 36 percent of men and
15
percent of women in this age-group were in the labor
force. With
better pension benefits and decreased opportunities for
agricultural or other self-employed work, however, labor
force
participation by the elderly has been decreasing since
1960. In
1986 about 90 percent of Japanese surveyed said that they
wished to
continue working after age sixty-five. They indicated both
financial and health reasons for this choice. Other
factors, such
as a strong work ethic and the centering of men's social
ties
around the workplace, may also be relevant. Employment was
not
always available, however, and men and women who worked
after
retirement usually took substantial cuts in salary and
prestige.
Between 1981 and 1986, the proportion of people sixty and
over who
reported that a public pension was their major source of
income
increased from 35 percent to 53 percent, while those
relying most
on earnings for income fell from 31 to 25 percent and
those relying
on children decreased from 16 to 9 percent
(see Aging and Retirement of the Labor Force
, ch. 4).
In the 1980s, there was a major trend toward the
elderly
maintaining separate households rather than co-residing
with the
families of adult children. The proportion living with
children
decreased from 77 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 1985,
although
this rate was still much higher than in other
industrialized
countries. The number of elderly living in Japan's
retirement or
nursing homes also increased from around 75,000 in 1970 to
more
than 216,000 in 1987; still, this group was a small
portion of the
total elderly population. People living alone or only with
spouses
constituted 32 percent of the sixty-five-and-over group.
Less than
half of those responding to a government survey believed
that it
was the duty of the eldest son to care for parents, but 63
percent
replied that it was natural for children to take care of
their
elderly parents. The motive of co-residence seems to have
changed,
from being the expected arrangement of an agricultural
society to
being an option for coping with circumstances such as
illness or
widowhood in a postindustrial society.
Concern for the health of the aged receives a great
deal of
attention, and nearly free medical care for people over
seventy
years of age is a national policy. Responsibility for the
care of
the aged, bedridden, or senile, however, still devolves
mainly on
family members, usually daughters-in-law.
Data as of January 1994
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