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ABSTRAKCombining Work and Family Care Although the various research that has addressed the difficulties of balancing work and family life over the years has generally focused on issues related to raising children, increasing attention is being given to the task of caring for older people as an important family responsibility as developed countries grapple with declining birthrates and aging
populations. Among such countries, Japan is experiencing population aging at a particularly rapid pace. Japan?s rate of population aging?namely, the percentage of people aged 65 or over among the total population?is currently the highest in the world, at over 25%. In that
sense, Japan is at the ?forefront? of super-aging society. In the past, the Japanese govern-
ment has looked to other countries such as th
e US and European nations as guides in for-
mulating its policies, but in the field of policies related to older people, Japan may be facing
issues that are yet to arise in other countrie
s. This edition was compiled on the basis of the
concept that a publication of articles which grasp the development of such issues has the
potential to be a valuable source of information for researchers and policymakers in other
countries.
The first article in this edition, ?Current
Situation and Problems of Legislation on
Long-Term Care in Japan?s Super-Aging Society? by Kimiyoshi Inamori, investigates is-
sues concerning policies to support caregiving for older people in Japan from the perspec-
tive of both the long-term care insurance system
and the system of caregiver leave. While
the long-term care insurance system, which was first implemented in 2000, may try to pro-
vide sufficient benefits for older people who require long-term care, this system alone does
not in fact necessarily always meet all of th
eir care needs. Family caregiving is therefore
required to complement long-term care insuranc
e services. As the system of caregiver leave
established in the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act was created to allow people with
family members requiring care to take time to prepare and arrange a system for that care to
be provided, income guarantees for workers on caregiver leave are provided in the form of
caregiver leave benefits from the employment
insurance system. However, noting that the
percentage of workers who actually take caregi
ver leave is extremely
low, Inamori suggests
that to assist workers in balancing work with family care it is more important to develop
schemes related to ways of working, such as short working hour systems or limits on over-
time work. The issues raised in this article such as the need to increase the take up rate of
caregiver leave and develop the system thr
ough measures for reduced working hours and
limitations on overtime work, are key points that have been addressed in the amendments to
the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act that will take effect in 2017. The revised act
makes caregiver leave easier to use by allowing
caregivers to take the
93 days of leave in
three segments. It has also increased the minimum period during which employers are
obliged to provide measures such as short working hours and other such schemes for re-
ducing working hours, etc. (also including flextime, pushing the time of starting or finishing
work forward or backward, and subsidizing th
e costs of long-term care), which allow care-
givers to balance daily caregiving responsibilities with work, from the current 93 days to
three years. The Act also guarantees workers
the right to restrictions on overtime working
hours until the end of caregiving.
In ?Family Care Leave and Job Quitting Due to Caregiving: Focus on the Need for
Long-Term Leave,? I investigat
e the potential effects of these amendments to the Child
Care and Family Care Leave Act, as well as id
entifying new issues that require further ex-
amination. Based on the results of analysis of data on workers who are employed when
caregiving begins, the article rev
eals that (i) the greater the need to take caregiver leave, the
less likely working caregivers are to remain continuously employed at the same enterprise
from the beginning to the end of the caregiving period, but the need for caregiver leave can
be alleviated through the use of long-term care
services, (ii) regardless of the degree of need
to take caregiver leave, workers who work six hours or less per day are more likely to re-
main continuously employed at the same enterprise than those who work over eight hours a
day, and (iii) those who care for their own pare
nts have a greater need for caregiver leave
than those who care for the parents of a spouse
, but regardless of the necessity for caregiver
leave, among workers who provide care alone without assistance from their families, and
workers who care for relatives with severe deme
ntia, there is a low likelihood of continuous
employment at the same enterprise. In other words, it can be said that a factor behind the
low numbers of people taking caregiver leave is the increase in the use of services offered
through long-term care in
surance. However, social changes such as the increase in people
caring for their own biological parents and the
rise in people who care for relatives alone
without other family members to assist them suggest the possibility that in the future there
will continue to be an increase in the number of people leaving their employment due to
caregiving responsibilities. The analysis results i
ndicate that in order to curb this increase,
in addition to the caregiver leave system, it is also important to develop systems such as
short working h
ours and limitations on overtime hours. In this sense, the recent amendments
to the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act
are suited to addressing the current circum-
stances under which people leave employment to provide care. At the same time, as the
current framework was developed
with the necessity for physical
care that arises in the case
of cerebrovascular diseases and other such conditions in mind, it may not cover social
measures to support care for dementia, and this article also highlights the importance of
such measures as an issue that will require
more extensive consideration in the future.
Since the amendments that to
ok effect in 2010, the Child Care and Family Care
Leave Act has prescribed the obligation of en
terprises to provide not only long-term care-
giver leave but also ?time off for caregivers? that can be taken in one-day units, and with
the introduction of the 2017 amendments caregiv
ers will be able to take this time off in
half-day units. Mayumi Nishimoto?s ?Choices of Leave When Caring for Family Members:
What Is the Best System for Balancing Family Care with Employment?? investigates the
necessity of not only leave that can be taken on a long-term basis, but also a flexible
time-off system like time off for caregivers. The results of the analysis reveal the following
five points. Firstly, when the main caregiver ratio is higher, the likelihood of taking care-
giver leave increases, and absenteeism is partic
ularly likely. Secondly, leave is more likely
to be taken when the spouse works longer hour
s, especially when the spouse?s employment
format precludes the control of those working
hours. The likelihood of absenteeism is also
higher if the spouse is a regular employee,
and the likelihood of taking annual leave in-
creases more or less significan
tly when the spouse is a regular employee or non-regular em-
ployee, or when there is no spouse. Thirdly,
the likelihood that leave will be taken rises in
cases where the person requiring care is admitt
ed to a general hospital or geriatric hospital
and in such cases caregiver leave and annual le
ave are particularly likely to be taken.
Fourthly, absenteeism is more likely to occur when the caregiver has a lower annual income.
Fifthly, absenteeism is also more prone to occur if the person is not a regular employee. In
other words, this indicates that depending on the environment of family caregiving, there is
also a demand not only for caregiving leave that can be taken on a long-term basis, but also
time off that caregivers can take in single-day units.
As is also indicated in the aforementioned
articles, balancing work and caregiving is
shaped by various environmental factors, such
as social services and support from enter-
prises, as well as the factors highlighted by Nishimoto in relation to family environment. In
?Frameworks for Balancing Work and Long-Term Care Duties, and Support Needed from
Enterprises,? Yoko Yajima focusses on the correlations between these various fields, pur-
suing quantitative analysis based on the hypothesis that the quality of the balance of work
and care (?subjective sense that balance is achieved, and preservation of a feeling that work
is rewarding?) differs depending on the frameworks and circumstances surrounding the
balance of work and care. In doing so she
looks at these ?frameworks and circumstances
surrounding the balance of work and care? from the five perspectives of attributes of the
caregiver, attributes of the care recipient, th
e relationship between these two people and the
role the caregiver plays, the long-term care fra
mework (including the use of long-term care
services, and cooperation from other family members), and the caregiver?s work style or
format (flexible work schedules and utilization of
leave, etc.). The results of this analysis
reveal that while caring for an elderly relativ
e appears at first glance to place caregivers in
circumstances that are more complex and divers
e than those faced when raising children, if
factors such as the attributes of the care reci
pient, the relationship between the caregiver and
care recipient, and the long-term care framework
are controlled, the types of support that
employees seek from enterprises with regard
to working styles and
formats entail ?curtail-
ing excessively long working hours,? ?creating an environment in which time off can be
taken flexibly and support programs can be utilized with ease,? and ?supervisors? consider-
ation for employees? circumstan
ces,? and there is hardly any difference between these
forms of support and the type of work environment required for employees raising children
to achieve work-life balance. However, given th
at if the care ?framework? required for bal-
ancing work and long-t
erm care duties is not in place, su
pport related to work style and
format from enterprises will not function effectively, Yajima highlights that it is therefore
important that enterprises do not merely offer such support in terms of work styles and for-
mats, but also encourage caregivers, who often try to handle duties directly by themselves,
to focus on the ?management of care services
and division of duties,? that is, using
long-term care services and other such support effectively and dividing duties among family
members.
The final article in this journal, ?Current Issues regarding Family Caregiving and
Gender Equality in Japan: Male Caregivers and the Interplay between Caregiving and Mas-
culinities? by Mao Saito, examines the problems faced by fami
ly caregivers in Japan from
the perspective of gender. More specifically, Saito focuses on the increasing numbers of
male caregivers in Japan, and investigates what significance th
e increase in male caregivers
may have for the achievement of gender equality in family caregiving, in light of the actual
conditions of caregiving by male caregivers. Contemporary family caregiving is inseparable
from the gender relationship between men as
the breadwinners and women as the caregivers.
At the same time, in Japan as in other countries, changes in family structures are leading to
a growing number of situations in which men must take on caregiving roles. As men take on
caregiving roles, they are forced to confront their own masculinities, and by looking at the
difficulties faced by male caregivers, this ar
ticle demonstrates that care and masculinities
are not simply conflicting aspects of men?s identities.
In discourse on ?welfare regimes,? Japan is considered to be a conservative regime in
which the family takes the key role in providing care. However, as family sizes decline
along with decreases in birth rates, it is be
coming difficult to rely on families to provide
care, and efforts have been made to supplement family care by socializing caregiving
through the development of public long-term
care services and comp
any-based support for
balancing work and caregiving. Countries with social democratic regimes in which the gov-
ernment typically provides substantial policies for supporting elderly people and liberal
regimes characterized by small government models may find that the onset of super-aging
society necessitates some kinds of changes to their frameworks. We hope that this edition
provides useful insights to readers who are aware of such issues.
Shingou Ikeda
The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training "
Tokyo: The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, 2006
