Abstract
Purpose: We examined how the youths’ consciousness has changed toward the elderly with changing times. Method and Subjects: A survey on attitude changes in persons in their 20th before and after the enforcement of nursing care insurance (NCI) was conducted. The goal was to compare the attitude toward the elderly represented by the current youths with that of the youths of 1977. The respondents were 23 persons of 20 to 27 years of age in 1977 and 26 persons of 20 to 25 years of age in 2012. Both groups were asked the same questions. Result: There were significant differences in the responses between 1977 and 2012. The differences concerned following; (1) recognition of special elderly nursing home (p< 0.01), (2) consciousness about the use of it (p< 0.01), and (3) concerning the elderly to become a social problem (p< 0.05). The consciousness of the youths before the NCI was high concerning the support old parents in a household, but there was little recognition of elderly nursing homes or the need to use them. Currently, the consciousness that the increase in the number of the elderly becomes a serious social problem is high. Discussion: Under NCI, the institution can receive refunds of hefty service fees for the disabled elderly who had deteriorated to the level of care needed (LCN). Becoming bedridden makes the LCN even lower. It is desirable for citizens because they become inpatients of nursing facilities effectively. In order to make the reduction of social security costs possible, and thus reduce the social problem caused by increasing elderly population, I consider that two points of revision of NCI law are necessary: (1) To prepare the option of cash provision for nursing care by a family member, as the system in Germany has it, which means that wages from NCI will be paid for the job of caring old parents at home. That would decrease the number of care facilities and make the daily life protection better and (2) the income of institutions will be increased, if LNC were improved.
