Status Quo and the Challenge in Research on Paid Employment and Sense of Meaningful Life for Elders in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the conditions necessary for the elder people in Japan to gain a sense of meaningful life through paid employment. The paper also summarizes the key issues that needs clarification with a particular focus on the following three: corporate human resource management, employment needs for elders, and successful aging.

First, I will confirm that in a typical corporate human resource management system, elderly workers extended with non-regular appointment are managed within a welfare-type employment, with no rating or raises in salaries. However, in order to increase elderly employment as effective work resource, it is necessary to revisit corporate human resource management so that it provides appropriate remuneration （not limited to salaries, but also opportunities for obtaining intrinsic rewards and sense of accomplishment） through work. Second, I will focus on elders’ employment needs and their sense of meaningful life, exploring the possibility that welfare-type human resource management may hinder elders’ attainment of sense of meaningful life through work. I will clarify differences in elders’ sense of meaningful life and their employment needs. Third, I will examine the applicability of theoretical arguments of successful aging to the issues of job search behaviors for the elderly. I will focus on the notion of "Selective Optimization with Compensation" and explore possibilities of using the notions of "selection", "optimization", and "compensation" to understanding elders’ positive attitudes toward work and motivation for employment. In the concluding section, I will review the points that have been overlooked in the past research. Although there are a number of discussions based on the viewpoints of corporate human resource management, the perspectives of elders are often times underestimated, despite the fact they are the main players. Elders are often discussed as one monolithic group of people, even though they are individuals with diverse health, financial, and many other conditions and needs. There are few studies focusing on elderly people who are looking for employment. Through these, key issues that need to be studied in future research will be clarified.