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Independence, security and the intergenerational social contract
 — home-helper services and elder care in rural Japan
Author(s)John W Traphagan
Journal titleCare Management Journals, vol 4, no 4, Winter 2003
Pagespp 216-222
Sourcehttp://www.springerpub.com
KeywordsFamily care ; Home care services ; Rural areas ; Case studies ; Japan.
AnnotationFor several years, demographic trends and changing ideas about responsibilities for elder care in Japan have contributed to the desire, or need, for families to seek out new care approaches. This article focuses on one alternative to traditional approaches to caring for elder family members - the home-helper programme that is available through the Japanese long-term care insurance programme. Using ethnographic data from two case studies in northern Japan, it will be argued that the home-helper programme forms a compensatory elder care system that is intended to augment family-provided care and social support, rather than to promote independent living. This compensatory approach to elder care is based upon an intergenerational social contract in which it is assumed that some degree of dependence on family members is both an expected and preferred outcome of growing old. (KJ/RH).
Accession NumberCPA-050217213 A
ClassmarkP6:SJ: NH: RL: 69P: 7DT

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