地域産業政策の担い手としての高齢者の役割に関する研究

～産業支援型シニア集団の現状と課題～

抄録

An aged society with few children has a great impact on the local economy and industry as it implies a small work force, deficiency of expert skills, and a shortage of successors. The increasing number of senior citizens wishing to work after their retirement is becoming an indispensable facet of the local economy. Thus, making use of the experience and special abilities of the aged becomes a crucial task for the regional industrial policy. Recently, aged retirees have developed organized business support groups in the form of private organizations, nonprofit organizations, stock companies, and business cooperatives. The activities of these organizations have attracted considerable attention as a new form of contribution by the aged. However, despite the importance of these groups, there are few research papers and reports on them. On the basis of literature surveys and interviews of some typical business support groups established by retirees, this paper classifies such groups into five characteristic types by comparing their purpose, structure, customers, services, and problems.

In addition, there are several local governments that try to support and cooperate with such groups. This paper examines two advanced regional government policies and researches into the possibility of as well as the problems involved in supporting such groups.

Through such an examination, it is shown that the business support groups of retirees will play a vital role in the activation of local industries and will become the principal partners of the regional government.