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RELATED TOPIC:
URBAN & RURAL LIFE

RELATED TOPIC:
EDUCATION & WORK

RELATED TOPIC:
JAPANESE SOCIETY

RELATED TOPIC:
POP CULTURE

RELATED TOPIC:
RELIGIONS

 
CONTEMPORARY JAPAN:
THE JAPANESE FAMILY

Care of the Elderly
Although Japanese family roles have changed considerably in the 20th century, aspects of the traditional ie, or “continuing family,” still remain. The Japanese have a saying that even if an extended family does not live together, parents and grandparents should live near enough to carry over a bowl of hot soup. In this video series, Harvard University professors Theodore Bestor and Helen Hardacre describe the enduring importance of traditional family values in Japan.

Helen Hardacre :: One of the stresses for the contemporary Japanese urban family has to do with questions of care of the aged. There are many stresses on the mother’s world already, but now that Japan has become a so-called “graying society,” in which the proportion of the aged is rising more rapidly than in any other industrialized nation, the fact that social policy for the aged has not developed very far results in the expectation that Japanese women will be the ones to care for their aged parents, or the parents of their husbands. This puts an extra burden on the stresses that Japanese women face within the family, given that they are already expected to bear nearly the fully responsibility for their children’s raising, education, family finances, and so on.

Theodore Bestor :: Not only do woman have heavy burdens in terms of their children’s education, but as long as society does not have a social welfare system that provides for the independent living and care of the elderly, many Japanese women at some point in their lives are going to find themselves having to take care of elderly relatives, their own parents, or their husband’s parents. And so again, the social realities of life don’t permit people, don’t permit women, in many cases, to get outside the home to pursue an independent career.