| Abstract: | Coping with caring for ill, fragile elderly is taxing the families in Japan, where longevity statistics predict early in the twenty-first century it will have the highest percentage of aged in the world. Interviews with 20 families revealed that although the culture mandates families care for their elderly, many are having considerable ambivalence and conflict, and caretakers suffer in the process unless they have assumed the defense of a martyr stance. Most do not seek nursing homes but are turning to government for supportive services. The trend in Japan, in spite of tradition, is for adult children to delay taking parents into their homes until they are unable to care for themselves. |
