A Comparative Study on Attitudes toward Aging: Canada and Japan

Abstract

  In the field of educational gerontology, understanding the eider's attitudes toward aging is one important task as a basis of educational intervention for this age group. In this paper, the author compared attitudes toward aging between the Canadian elderly and Japanese elderly with the same questionnaires.

  Overall, attitudes toward aging were positive/neutral in both respondents, but Canadian's attitudes toward aging were more positive orienred.

  With the help of Hayashi's Quantitative Method III, two clusters of attitudes, namely positive/neutral and negative were detected. The elderly of high socio economic status were more likely to have negative attitudes toward aging. But we suggest that positive attitudes toward aging will be cultivated through educational intervention for the elderly, as is evidenced by the participants of the Canadian Senior's Center.