Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan

Scott Bass, Masato Oka, Jill Norton, Robert Morris *Deceased*

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317948896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gerontology
• Index: Social Sciences

Thirty years ago, when compared to the U.S., England, France, and Sweden, Japan had the lowest life expectancy for males and females. Today, Japan has the highest life expectancy and is the world's most rapidly aging society. Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan captures the vitality of Japanese policymakers and the challenges they face in shaping a modern society responding to its changing needs. The rapid transition to an aging society poses a set of complex policy and resource dilemmas; the responses taken in Japan are of great value to policymakers, professionals, and students in the fields of gerontology, Asian and Japanese studies, sociology, public policy, administration and management, and anthropology in other industrial aging societies. Readers of Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan will discover the array of social and economic implications that comes with an increasingly aged society. Such a change in demographics affects pension expenditures and pension contributions, capital formation and savings rates, health costs, service systems, tax bases, labor pools, career counseling, training, advertising, and marketing. This book does not stop with these topics, however. Readers also learn about:

• how older Japanese workers are staying employed and employable
• policies in Japan for a smooth transition from work to retirement
• Japan's Silver Human Resource Centers
• the new direction of health services in Japan
• the Japanese financing system for elderly health care
• the expansion of formalized in-home services for Japan's aged
• Japanese housing policy and the concept of universal design
• the Gold Plan, a comprehensive ten-year plan to promote health care and welfare for the aged
• the concept of ikigai--promoting feelings of purpose and self-worth in the agedPublic Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan is one of only a handful of books prepared in English by American and Japanese authors for an international audience about aging and social policy in Japan. The book's recent collection of articles by leading scholars on the subject makes it a unique and timely source of information. Above all, Public Policy and the Old Age Revolution in Japan makes it clear that the rest of the world has many valuable lessons to learn by studying Japan's approach to its rapidly aging society.

Index

Accidental falls, housing design-related, 165, 166

Activities of daily living (ADLs) impairments, 15, 16

Advisory Committee on Health and Welfare, 51

Advisory Committee on Social Security, 40, 51

Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 67, 80, 84, 93n.

American Association of Retired Persons, 76

Annuities, 63, 82

Association of Employment Development for Senior Citizens, 85, 90, 94n.

“Baby hotels,” 45, 55n.

Babysitting services, 131n.

Bedridden elderly

eligibility for health and social welfare services, 18

Gold Plan provisions for, 178

home-helper services for, 142, 155, 179

prevalence of, 14, 15, 16, 165, 166, 179

Budget, national, social security benefits as percentage of, 7, 8, 10

Building Standard Law, 163

Canada, elderly population’s labor force participation, 60, 65

Cancer, as mortality cause, 139

Cane use, 165–166

Career-development training, 91

Caregivers, for the elderly

family as, 7

psychosocial problems of, 138–139

social factors affecting, 149–150, 157

in United States, 76

government-sponsored monetary benefits for, 52

projected decrease, 162

women as, 52, 125, 126–127, 138

effect of labor force participation on, 126–127, 149–150

in Resident-Participation Type programs, 153, 154, 156–157

in Silver Human Resource Center programs, 126–129, 130

Care service insurance, 182, 185, 188

Case-management programs, 158

Cataract surgery, 140

Catastrophic illness, National Health Insurance coverage of, 44

Center for Career Productivity for the Aged, 73–74

Central Labor Relations C...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• Introduction: Japan's Aging Society
• Health and Social Care
• Work and Retirement
• Social Policy
• Index