Who Cares about Care Work in Japan

The context behind the books under review is the rapidly ageing population, declining birth rate, greater numbers of women seeking paid work, the fact that women are predominantly the main caregivers of children and the aged, and public spending on social welfare not keeping pace with the increase in the portion of the population who are elderly or infirm. Nishikawa's book examines care work both as it is configured privately within the family, in particular focussing on childcare, and publicly when care of the elderly is outsourced to paid employees. The six-volume Kea Sono Shisō to Jissen draws on the expertise of a diverse range of academics and practitioners involved in various aspects of the care industry. The series covers a breadth of issues related to care work including discussions of what care actually means, the work of caregivers, the effects of caring for family members on the caregivers, the policy framework of care and the different ways in which care can be conducted. Given my research interest in care workers, particularly care work with the aged, my discussion of these works focuses specifically on a discussion of workers in the care industry.

Care work · Child care · Context (archaeology) · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Family medicine · Pace · Paid work · Personal care · Political science · Population · Population ageing · Public relations · Sociology · Welfare · Work (physics) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Medicine · Nursing · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Gerontology · Social Work