Burden Among Family Caregivers of Older People Who Need Care in Japan

Improvements of public health and advances in medicine after World War II have given Japan one of the highest average life expectancies in the world. Increased life expectancy means that more senior citizens will have serious physical and mental illness, which causes an increase in the number of the older people who need care for their daily livings as well as medical care for their chronic diseases. Informal care for the older people with disabilities has proven to be a heavy burden for their family caregivers in many countries, and women were assumed to provide the main source of support for family members in Western countries as well as in Japan. The value of filial piety, which is a social norm that parents should love and care for their children and that children in turn should respect and care for their parents, have been shared for many generations in East Asian nations including Japan. Therefore, Japanese caregivers are concerned about what others say when they use social care services for their parents. In April 2000, the public long-term care insurance system (LTCIS) for the older people was launched in Japan, making it the third country, after the Netherlands and Germany. In this chapter, we would like to introduce Japanese LTCIS and studies on burden/depression among caregivers before and after the introduction of this system.