Older Adults and Care: Reshaped Family Roles in Societal Change. A Comparative Study of Japan, South Korea, and Sweden
Aging and the Family: Understanding Changes in Structural and Relationship Dynamics
ISBN: 978-1-80071-491-5, eISBN: 978-1-80071-490-8
Publication date: 25 February 2021
Abstract
Purpose: The aim is to explore how family relations are affected by societal changes in relation to informal and formal caregiving and self-determination of older adults.
Design/methodology/approach: Care managers (CMs)/social workers (SWs) (N = 124) participated in a comparative vignette study including Japan, South Korea, and Sweden. Systems theory was used.
Findings: Japanese CMs/SWs clearly describe their efforts to create networks in a relational way between formal and informal actors in the community. South Korean CMs/SWs balance between suggesting interventions to support daily life at home or a move to a nursing home, often acknowledging the family as the main caregiver. In Sweden, CMs/SWs highlight the juridical element in meeting the older adult and the interventions offered, and families primarily give social support. Regarding self-determination, the Japanese priority is for CMs/SWs to harmonize within the family and the community. South Korean CMs/SWs express ambivalent attitudes to older adults’ capability for self-determination in the intersection between formal and family care. Swedish CMs/SWs adhere to the older adult’s self-determination, while acknowledging the role of the family in persuading the older adult to accept interventions. The results suggest emerging defamilialization in South Korea, while tendencies to refamilialization are noticed in Japan and Sweden, albeit in different ways.
Research limitations/implications: In translation, nuances may be lost. A focus on changing families shows that country-specific details in care services have been reduced. For future research, perspectives of “care” need to be studied on different levels.
Originality/value: Using one vignette in three countries with different welfare regimes, discussing changing views on families’, communities’ and societal caregiving is unique. This captures changes in policy, influencing re- and defamilialization.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the participants for generously sharing their experiences. The late Professor Elinor Brunnberg has been the most important member of this cross-national research group. She initiated the collaboration with great enthusiasm, and without her competence, there would not have been any empirical data collection. Associate Professor Masanori Fujimura and Professor Emeritus Noriaki Okuda contributed to the data analysis and discussion. Special thanks to Professor Taeyoung Park, Manwon Park, Hyungjin Lee, Jeongmi Kwon, Hyanga Kim, and Soyoun Lim for helping us in the process of data collection, organization, and analysis. Håkan Karp, Anna Niia, and Munir Dag have made important contributions along the way.
Citation
Anbäcken, E.-M., Almqvist, A.-L., Johansson, C., Kinugasa, K., Obata, M., Hyun, J., Lee, J. and Park, Y.J. (2021), "Older Adults and Care: Reshaped Family Roles in Societal Change. A Comparative Study of Japan, South Korea, and Sweden", Claster, P.N. and Blair, S.L. (Ed.) Aging and the Family: Understanding Changes in Structural and Relationship Dynamics (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 17), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520210000017001
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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