Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how elderly people in rural areas think regarding the utilization of people and services offering them ‘personal support’. We focused on elderly people who live in areas where stem family households are still prevalent, and particularly on whether this family composition leads them to rely on their household members for support, or whether they seek support elsewhere. In addition, we examined whether or not their choice of support is influenced by compositional and/or structural changes within the stem family. We classified ‘personal support’ into three types: emotional support, short-term instrumental support (support for illness) and long-term instrumental support (care support).
A survey of the elderly in the Rokugou region of Kuroishi city provided the following results: Firstly, the elderly have high expectations that members of their households will provide all types of support. Secondly, neighbors or children living apart from their elderly parents are helpful if emotional or illness support is required. The nature of this support is the ongoing form of mutual assistance that generally exists within these relationships. Thirdly, formal services are useful as a substitute for household members in cases where care support is needed. Some households are no longer able to support the elderly due to compositional changes within the family or because the norm for elderly support is weakening. Also, many children are no longer engaging in agricultural production or taking over the family farm. The elderly’s desire to maintain agricultural production is another reason why formal services were deemed necessary.
