The new seniors: Growing old alone
I. The twenty-first century demographic collapse: The population pyramid becomes a skyscraper
“Aging society” → “Aged society” → Hyper-aging society” → “Hyper-aged society”
II. The “Showa single-digit” generation as Japan’s first mass seniors
But what about the Baby-Boomers?
III. From Pampers to Depends: The crisis of eldercare
A. Declining co-residence and the new senior singles
B. Public entitlements vs. private obligations: Who is responsible for one’s later years?
C. The medicalization of “elderly problems”: Going for gold in the Aging Olympics
The bedridden (neta-kiri 寝たきり), the “senile elderly” (boke rojin ボケ老人), and the cultural idioms of caregiving
D. The gender of eldercare: A woman’s three old ages
IV. Are there solutions?
A. Working seniors
B. Promoting families
C. Community-based caregiving
D. National long-term home-care insurance
E. But are they enough?
V. Aotani: Structure and meaning in a Japanese old age home (Diana Bethel)
A. Aotani’s structure
1. personnel
- 3 male administrators from municipal office
- 10 female staff
- 75-80 residents (capacity=100), averaging in age from 57-91 (av=77)
2. layout
- genkan; corridors, lounges, and dining halls; rooms
- one wing vs. other wing
- first floor vs. second floor (stairs/lounge)
3. rules and stipulations
- about who gets in
- about living arrangements
- about daily schedule (get-up, work for 4 hours, baths on alternate days, bedtime at 9, no liquor)
II. Inhabiting the structure
A. a discourse of “family”: treating the Aotani caregivers as daughters-in-law and/or “mothers”
B. adopting an age-order principle: sometimes genially, sometimes grudgingly
C. privacy versus hospitality: slippers and doors as signs, table as focal point and marker of social time, tea
D. the health hierarchy of first-floor persons vs. second-floor persons
E. the social deployment of hobbies and skills (photography, painting)
Note how the above features disrupt “old age” as a unitary category, both reflecting and producing a wide range of ages, physical abilities, mental capabilities, and social skills (M/F)
F. power and resistance: drinking alcohol, watching baseball, sneaking out
G. elder-marriage: common-law understandings, seeking children’s “approval”
H. internal norms of appraisal and judgment: shikkari shiteru vs. darashi ga nai
I. dying and death: marking passings, ihai tablets, and butsudan memorials
VI. Another aging population: Japan’s day laborers