Japanese working women who have struggled with discrimination in the workplace and the hardships associated with balancing marriage, children and work now face another obstacle: caring for aged parents.
Without an adequate social care system or support from their companies and their husbands, many working women are finding they have to give up their careers.
”It all depends on luck whether women can continue to work until retirement,” said Noriko Okifuji, 52, the author of ”The Day A Woman Left the Office,” a 1979 book based on her own bitter experience. ”Burden-sharing doesn`t exist in this country.”
Okifuji`s father, Shigeru, developed cancer 15 years ago. The year before, Okifuji had become the first woman section manager at Japan Research Center Inc., a Tokyo-based market research company.
She had no intention of resigning. ”The job was challenging and rewarding,” she said. ”I also felt responsible for other women if I quit.” But Okifuji found it extremely hard to do everything she needed. Following surgery, her father was in and out of the hospital. Okifuji, who spent four hours a day commuting, cared for her father at night. As his condition deteriorated, she would have to leave work to care for him.
Further complicating matters, seven months after Shigeru became ill, Okifuji`s husband, Akira, 41, who works with a construction company, was transferred to Sapporo, about 500 miles north of Tokyo.
Maintaining a long-distance marriage was costly. Okifuji`s bonus went toward hospital expenses for her father. She had to spend nearly half of her salary on extra costs, including a housekeeper five days a week to care for her two daughters, then 14 and 7.
Okifuji`s father died eight months after he became ill.
Her husband then insisted she quit her job and move to Sapporo. After her company denied her request for a three-year, unpaid leave, Okifuji quit in 1976.
”I was burned out and couldn`t think of any other alternatives,” said Okifuji, who now writes from home. ”I still regret I quit. And at the same time I ask myself why I didn`t give all of my time to my father. The agony and guilt will never disappear as long as I live.”
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it is estimated that by the year 2000, the number of bedridden senior citizens in Japan will be 1 million.
In Japan as in the United States, most of those who provide unpaid home care for the aged are women, including wives, daughters or daughters-in-law.
”A Japanese woman has to cope with three old ages, her husband`s father, her husband`s and her own,” said Sumiko Takahara, former director of the Economic Planning Agency. It can be more, depending on family situations.
More than 17 million women work in Japan, according to the 1989 government census; 68 percent are married. One of every three women who care for aged parents at home leaves her job, according to a survey by Japan`s Labor Study Institute. The average age of these women is 56.
A recent survey by the Ministry of Labor said that nearly half of the working women queried felt that they could not care for aged parents and continue working.
Okifuji foresees a tougher situation for working women:
”If they keep quitting, it will damage women`s employment and promotion opportunities. It is unfair, as our male counterparts will never give up their careers. They (the men) don`t help their wives, saying they are too busy working. It`s a Japanese men`s issue, not just women`s.”
Japanese tradition places a particularly heavy burden on a woman who is married to the oldest son of a family because she also is expected to take care of her husband`s parents.
”It`s almost mandatory,” said Yuko Shimada, 54, a small business owner who took care of her mother-in-law for eight years.
”With the lack of a social care system, the current situation creates a living hell for the caretakers and those who are taken care of,” Shimada said.
Shimada gave up her corsage business to honor her husband`s request to care for his mother, Ai, who had suffered a heart attack and was acting confused.
”It was a painful decision,” Shimada said. ”I took tranquilizers to ease my own stress while taking care of my mother-in-law.”
Shimada felt she was on duty 24 hours a day. She went to seminars on home care of the aged to improve her skills and knowledge.
”It`s not a beautiful story, as I also have emotions,” Shimada said. Home care eventually became impossible, and Ai was hospitalized.
”I wanted to take care of her at home until the end, but I couldn`t. She needed medical treatment. It hurts me, though I know I did my best for her.” Ai Shimada died in 1989 at age 79.
Yuko Shimada said it is impossible for her to resume her career after her long absence. Now she is a volunteer for a hot line serving family members who care for senile dementia sufferers.
Many women who have cared for aged parents will not talk about it; the experience was too painful. Some, like Shimada, are willing to discuss their experiences because they feel it is time the issue received attention.
”It`s just too much to do for any woman,” Shimada said. ”Family members also need rest to take good care of the aged.”
Hideko Uetsuki, 45, a mental health counselor in Tokyo, has taken care of her mother, Satoyo, 69, at her three-room apartment in Tokyo since May. Satoyo suffers from diabetes, Parkinson`s disease and senile dementia.
Satoyo had lived alone after her husband`s death 17 years ago. After not hearing from her mother for three months, Uetsuki found her barely surviving in her house, 400 miles southwest of Tokyo. After her mother had been hospitalized for a year, Uetsuki took her home.
”She didn`t want to stay at the hospital,” Uetsuki said. ”And I wanted to do my best for my mother.”
However, it was much harder than Uetsuki expected. She is a trained counselor, but Uetsuki thought she was going to go crazy.
For one thing, she had no time for herself. Satoyo was ”just like an object without any human feeling,” Uetsuki said. ”I couldn`t stand the idea that it was my mother (who was sick).”
But Satoyo has improved under Uetsuki`s care. Uetsuki`s husband, Katsuhiko, 47, also helps with her care. The couple have no children.
Uetsuki is an only child, and her husband is the oldest son of his family. The couple also are concerned about the health of Katsuhiko`s mother, who lives in Osaka and has a heart problem.
As the number of children within a family has declined, from 4.5 in 1947 to 1.6 in 1989, the issue is expected to become more serious when today`s children reach adulthood.
Hideko Uetsuki works on contract with hospitals, so she can limit her working days to 15 a month, although that reduces her income by one-third. But if a woman works full time with a company, her chances of continuing work while caring for an aged parent are limited. She may find work with a smaller company, but at much lower salary. And those who work part time have no job security or benefits.
Women say that such conditions are unfair and ensure a miserable old age for women. They say the stress contributes to the high suicide rate of women in Japan.
In response to women`s urgent requests for special leaves to care for aged parents, the Ministry of Labor recently kicked off a campaign to encourage companies to offer such plans.
According to the ministry, only 13.6 percent of major companies offer special leaves. However, there is no legal requirement to offer such a leave, and the ministry has no figures on how many employees are taking advantage of these plans.
Last fall, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the Golden Plan, a 10-year program that would increase by 5,000 the number of home helpers to provide more support for working families. It also would increase the number of hospital beds for short stays and open 850 more day-care centers nationwide.
(Currently there are about 35,000 home helpers in Japan for 13 million people older than 65; in Sweden, the comparable ratio is 76,000 per 1.6 million.)
Still, experts say the Golden Plan is not enough and that it will take a long time to establish a good support system in this economy-oriented society. ”As the Japanese highly value self-sufficiency for economic growth, thoughtfulness toward the weak has been lost,” Okifuji said.
”We need to change the perception of (male) policymakers. Career or care-taking struggles by women must be ended in our generation.”
