Understanding diversity in later life and a new culture of aging: Sociology of aging in Japan

Longevity in a super-aged society

In terms of the global trend in demographic aging and the extension of later life, Japan deserves international attention. Over the coming decades, Japan will remain far ahead of the rest of the world on the population aging curve (Higo, 2013). The number of Japanese people who were 65 or older was 7% in 1970, 14% in 1994, 21% in 2007, and 28.1% in 2018. Japan is currently a super-aged society. Amid this demographic aging, there is also an important point to be made about prolonged retirement for individuals. In 1970, the average life expectancy at age 65 was 12.5 years for men and 15.34 years for women. As of 2015, it was 19.41 years for men and 24.42 years for women (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 2017). The length of time after retirement due to increased longevity is significantly transforming and diversifying life courses and retirement lifestyles.

Since the 1990s, research in the sociology of aging has sought to understand, analyze, and theorize diverse life courses, studying demographic change, increased longevity, and the findings of social gerontology with the aim of breaking down ageism. Aging research has also focused on positive aspects of old age (Kaufman, 1986; Takahashi and Takahagi, 1996). Since the 2000s, the need to focus on positive aspects has called for the examination of successful aging (Katagiri, 2012; Oda, 2004), active aging (Kaneko, 2014; Maeda, 2006), and productive aging (Saito, 2006). These studies have shown that old age can be an active and productive period of life, with most suggesting that an active life will likely result in a successful retirement period. These ideas are premised on activity theory (Havighurst, 1961), which underlines the importance of continuing activity in old age.

The process of social change to a super-aged society involves older people moving from being a minority to a majority population (Amada et al., 2011). The majority of older people are just men who were regularly employed and are now retired and their wives. The social security system has been constructed on the nuclear family with older people as a majority.

Diverse life courses and active older people

Research conducted to ensure a ‘better’ old age has mainly been based on empirical studies. This section introduces three research fields that have helped to highlight diversity in the life courses and activities of older people: first, employment in old age; second, social participation in older age; and, third, social and community relations.

First, sociological studies of aging have examined the effectiveness of continuing to work rather than retire in old age. Continuing work in old age is expected to have a positive effect on the national economy and reduce social security costs. The extension of the retirement age and continuation of work are being promoted by the government (Higo et al., 2016). In Japan, older people’s willingness to work is high in comparison to other countries (Cabinet Office, 2015). This strong desire is driven by the expectation of positive economic and health effects (Fujiwara and Minami, 2016; Fukushima, 2007; Toda, 2018).

Second, research on aging has been conducted on various social participatory activities in old age and their effects. Volunteer activities in Japan began to attract attention around the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. The history of volunteering in Japan is not as long as in Western Europe and the United States, and the participation rate is lower. However, volunteer activities in old age have been found to be a significant factor in productive aging (Saito, 2006). Older volunteers are more likely to be financially stable, feel subjective happiness, be satisfied with their community, and interact with their friends (Shishido, 2018). Hence, old-aged volunteers, like other generations, participate for both altruistic and self-interested reasons. However, Japanese people are often hesitant to engage in volunteer activities because they have such high ideals for volunteers (Katagiri, 2012). Moreover, promoting volunteerism can create a critical view of older people who do not participate in volunteer activities.

Research has also been carried out on activities that lie between volunteering and working. In 1980, Silver Human Resource Centers (SHRC) were set up across the country. The SHRC is a place where older people can use expertise gained in the past, earning under the minimum wage. Work at the SHRC not only offers a means of earning a living but is positioned as ‘ikigai work’ [work for the meaning of life] (Weiss et al., 2005). Ishibashi (2016) also pointed out that its workers find a sense of meaning and purpose at the SHRC. However, the SHRC’s activities could be considered as enabling a supply of cheap labor through public support and may deprive the younger generation of employment opportunities.

Third, numerous empirical studies have focused on the social relationships of older persons. In Japan, personal networks in old age are much smaller and more spouse-dependent than in the United States (Shishido, 2018). Several studies have confirmed the effect of non-kinship networks; for example, older people with friend and neighborhood networks were found to have higher subjective well-being than those without (Maeda, 2006). An effect of such non-kinship networks has been identified in the later stages of life; Harada (2017) analyzed data on people aged 75 or older and found that short-distance friend networks and middle-distance kinship networks increased the life satisfaction of men and women, respectively. Hence, personal networks have been found to be buffers that increase older people’s abilities to perform the activities of daily living and to reduce the adverse effects of stressful life events; maintaining a personal network in old age is essential to growing old in a better way.

Many of the studies mentioned above show that being active enhances life in old age and that good social relationships, support networks, and social capital support successful aging. At the same time, many of these studies only point out the diversity in activeness and not in the social structure. However, the diversity of life courses has not only positive but also negative aspects.

Understanding current social issues of old age

Sociological research on negative aspects of old age includes ageism, social isolation, and social disparities. Studies on these topics reveal the strength of aged nuclear families, comprising men who were in full-time employment and their wives, and reveal the diversity of aging in terms of social structural issues.

Palmore (1999: 4) defines ageism as ‘any negative or positive prejudice and discrimination against or in favor of an age group.’ Ageism also includes aspects of self-alienation due to social institutions. There are two significant studies on the current state of ageism in Japanese society. First, Tsuji (2000) used labeling theory to analyze the process of self-labeling through which older people consider themselves to have become ‘old.’ Second, Harada et al. (2008) developed the Japanese version of the Fraboni Ageism Scale and revealed that when people have less contact with older people, less knowledge about aging, and less life satisfaction, the more likely they are to be ageist. Analyzing the relationship between community organization and ageism, Sekine (2019) found that people who do not need a neighborhood association tend to be ageist. These studies show that interactions can change the ageism that older people face and that there are diverse images of older people within each age group. Research on ageism has revealed stereotypes of aging and the tenacity of the uniform understanding of old age that took hold in Japanese society during the period of rapid economic growth. Furthermore, it has examined self-alienation in old age caused by such concepts.

Social isolation in old age is also an important theme of current research on aging in Japan. A systematic study of social isolation by Saito (2018) resulted in three key findings. First, social isolation, which involves a lack of interaction with other people, is strongly associated with social problems such as poverty, illness, unhealthy lifestyles, suicide, and crime. Second, certain people, especially men and/or unmarried single people, are at higher risk of social isolation and, in some cases, death. Third, social isolation is more likely to occur in some local areas. Environmental factors such as social capital, economic inequality, social capital, and civic activities, as well as the physical environment, play an essential role in social isolation. Interestingly, older people who live with their families are sometimes isolated socially (Kobayashi et al., 2011). Isolated older people are less likely to have access to private and public support, more likely to be depressed, and more likely to be anxious about the future. The solutions to social isolation are promoting work and volunteering (Fujiwara and Minami, 2016), community activities and neighbors’ watch programs (Saito, 2018).

Old age is the final stage of life, and the one in which people suffer from the cumulative effects of the life process. Therefore, economic inequality in old age is more significant than at any other age. The Gini coefficient of household income is higher for older people than for younger generations; and, since the 1990s, the Gini coefficient for older generations has been declining due to the development of the social security system (Tachibanaki, 2016). While income inequality has decreased, asset inequality within the elderly population has increased (Tachibanaki, 2016). Shirahase (2005) analyzed the impact of household composition on economic disparities and found that single households and households of only a married couple with persons aged 65 years or over in Japan exhibited substantial economic inequality compared to the United States and Western Europe. The economic disparity is dependent on household composition type because a higher percentage of Japanese live in three-generation homes (Shirahase, 2005). Fujita (2015) called low-income elderly adults who fall into poverty problems ‘Karyu Roujin’ [under-class senior] and warned about the rapidly increasing number of seniors, especially as low-income older adults are not even able to die the way they would like (Otomo, 2013).

The lack of poverty support for older people has been amplified by a decline in local municipalities’ grasp of older people’s issues and by the long-term care insurance system in operation since 2000. This insurance system, which allows people to make their own choices, is an effective policy for those who are able to speak up for themselves, but it is worse for those who cannot (Kawai, 2015). These findings suggest that older people may be forced to work in old age not because they want to but because they are forced to under a fragile social security system (Fujita, 2015; Portacolone, 2013).

Another major problem in old age is family caregiving, as the need for health care increases in old age, particularly for those aged 75 years or over. The long-term care insurance system, which targeted the socialization of care for older people, did not guarantee coverage of all care, placing a high burden of care on family members (Ueno, 2012). There has been substantial high-quality qualitative research on the difficulties for family caregivers in Japan. Analyzing family caregiving for a family member with dementia, Iguchi (2006) defines family caregivers’ strong orientation to care as ‘diffuseness’, as there are no limitations in the care they might provide. Families are irreplaceable. Therefore, the stronger they feel about caring for their family members, the more they expand their role (Iguchi, 2006). Kinoshita (2019) observes that the family caregivers of an older person with dementia often claim a privileged position as the only people who know the older person’s real condition. Because of the specific experiences that family caregivers share with a family member with dementia and the caregivers’ irreplaceability, conflicts between family caregivers and professionals inevitably occur (Kinoshita, 2019). The development and improvement of dementia care have created a paradox in which families try too hard for family care instead of trusting professional staff.

The contemporary challenges associated with old age are caused by the divergences between macro-social changes, demographic aging, increasing longevity, changes in family structure, urbanization, a transformation of social security systems and their austerity, and individual efforts in micro practice. Sociological discoveries regarding aging and the social problems of older people provide a new perspective for understanding contemporary society and highlight the need to envision new solutions for older persons.

Miyamoto (2017) has advocated the concept of Chiiki Kyousei Shakai [an inclusive society]. He is concerned about the division between people who support others and people who are supported, as well as about the divisions among people who are supported into older people, people with disabilities, children, and recipients of public assistance benefits, created by Japan’s social security system. Ikai (2010) has analyzed the history of the concept of Chiiki Houkatsu Care System [the integrated community-based care system] which emphasizes communal, mutual aid in the care of older people and the prevention of long-term care. Miyamoto and Ikai’s arguments are based on sociological findings on aging and related subjects.

Reflexive aging and its critique

Research on the sociology of aging breaks down negative impressions of old age and works toward a society that does not regard older people as a minority. As the result, from the 2000s onward, Japanese society has not seen older people as merely weak. Rather, notions that older people are diverse and that it is impossible to speak uniformly are widespread. So, does this make the concepts of ‘older people’ and ‘aging’ unnecessary? Finally, we introduce a new theoretical perspective on the sociology of aging, mainly through the works of Amada (2004, 2010, 2011). The attempt to connect the problem of aging to the contemporary sociological theory of reflexivity in Japan is unique in global scholarship. In his study, Amada (2010) critically examines a society that asks older individuals to assume the consequences of their actions because empirical sociological findings on aging provide them with options for a better way of aging.

Amada analyzes a problem that is lost in the recognition of diverse life courses and older people. Referring to the theory of high modernity about the development of internally referential social systems and that ‘the self becomes a reflexive project’ (Giddens, 1991: 32), Amada conceptualized reflexive aging that always examines social norms and institutions of aging. He observes that ‘current older people have to examine social norms and institutions that were assumed as an axiom as a subject for scrutiny and revision and have to constantly self-identify what I am’ (Amada, 2010: 86).

However, the problem is that constant ‘scrutiny and revision’ make the acquisition of the meaning of old age in an aged society more difficult. Society does not give the meaning of life to older persons. They constantly self-examine the meaning of their own lives (self-reflexivity). Just growing old does not make it possible to be old. Paradoxically, being old is unlikely while the meaning of old age is being dismantled by its diversification. Older persons must provide their own meanings of life in retrospective and future-oriented ways with a ‘reflective look on aging as a life process’ (Ogura, 2001, 2006). Only those who can continue to engage in this constant reflexive practice are autonomous individuals. Because people have to retain autonomy, ‘depending on others’ or ‘entrusting to others’ has no positive meaning. The difficulties of ‘communality’ in an aged society become apparent (Gon, 2010: 54).

How can we overcome reflexive aging? Amada attempts to rethink the experiences of people with dementia who are not reflexive persons. Aging and frailty are experiences that inevitably require the assistance and care of others. Hence, he finds that it makes people dependent on each other, allowing them to find the potential to overcome the reflexive aging that enforces autonomy on a person (Amada, 2010).

Ogura (2006) analyzes baby boomers’ life stories and finds that growing old is a challenge of generational generativity to remake each experience by communications with convoys as significant others. (Convoy is a metaphor used to evoke the image of a protective layer of families, friends, who surround the individual and help and ‘work in the processing of an individual human life’ [Plath, 1980: 183].) Generativity is Erikson’s (1982) seventh psychosocial stage and means contributing to the next generation. Ogura tries to restore aging from a risk-based functional rational approach in modern society to a human-generativity approach beyond the irrationality of aging (Ogura, 2006). Watanabe (2009) shows that the communal experience of activities in retiree groups is shaped by the following two axes: shared generational experiences and the shared daily routine of everyday life through group participation. Concerning group activity, Watanabe (2009) pointed out that reflexive aging can be overcome through relationships that generate mutual living patterns and care in a community. These theoretical and qualitative studies present the possibility of a new culture of aging that gets round the current culture of aging that privileges uniformity and autonomy under reflexive aging.

The affirmation of dependency brings new horizons to empirical research and puts Miyamoto’s and Ikai’s concepts into practice. In Japan’s current society, where most people are male retirees and their wives with an preference for independence, the idea is a point of departure for the sociology of aging in Japan.

Final remarks

In 2007, sociologist and feminist Chizuko Ueno published a book titled Ohitorisama no Rougo [Old Days of Single Ladies]. At the beginning of the book, Ueno (2007) writes, ‘Whether you get married or not, everyone is alone in the end’ (p. 12). She goes on to encourage women to have the know-how to live alone in later life while taking advantage of the social security system, and emphasizes the importance of alternative networks not tied to family. The book, written in a casual, manual-like style, became a bestseller, but has been criticized. The criticism is that the strategy of the ‘ohitorisama’ [single ladies] is to suggest a getaway for baby boomers (born around 1947–1949) and that the younger generation may not have access to the same kind of public services following a prolonged economic recession. Ueno responded to the criticisms curtly, observing that the book was written with no intent to be transgenerational and is only for female baby boomers (Ueno and Kitada, 2008).

Here, we do not discuss the validity of the manual presented by Ueno. What we want to focus on is the concept of period-bound. Sociological studies of aging have shown that older people are not uniform but diverse. Although Ueno’s argument was understood to cause generational conflict, the experience of aging is inherently period-bound. The diversity of the life course is always period-bound, and sociological findings on aging are based on age, period, and cohort effects, which are termed life-course effects (Giele and Elder, 1998).

This essay has provided an overview of sociological research on aging in Japan. As we have seen, these studies have made great progress from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The most important finding is that the experience of aging is not a project in which people must be autonomous across the life course but a project in which people can be dependent and support each other. The works on family caregiving for people with dementia and the critical theory of reflexive aging provide new and exciting concepts that have not been explored in other countries.

These studies are noteworthy achievements, as they have led to theoretical findings. In empirical research, sociologists are not the only ones to tackle the topic of aging but also collaborate with gerontologists, economists, social welfare scholars, and psychologists in interdisciplinary research. Indeed, Japan’s sociological research into aging has played a role in understanding this social phenomenon from multiple perspectives. These studies have affirmed the practices of older adults living in dynamic interdependent relationships rather than as independent and autonomous retired men. However, a problem with these sociological studies is that theoretical results and quantitative empirical research are not always bridged. Another challenge is exporting Japan’s sociological findings on aging to other countries as the theoretical and qualitative research is written almost entirely in Japanese and is rarely disseminated abroad. Particularly because the populations of East and Southeast Asian countries are expected to be aging even more rapidly than that of Japan, sociological findings on aging are likely to become even more critical. International collaboration in and sharing of sociological research that bridges theory and empirical study will be key to building the future sociology of aging.