Visibilization of Care Work in Social Policies: Issues of the Long-term Care Insurance System Viewed through Care Work Evaluation

Abstract

The long-term care insurance system (LTCIS) started in 2000 with under the principle of "care by society," with the intention that society as a whole would support the care work that had been performed by many women as unpaid work within families. Rapid expansion of LTCIS via the quasi-marketization of care provisions under the social insurance scheme also implies progress in the laborization of care work. Such trends can be interpreted as a movement of Japan's social policies breaking away from the male breadwinner model supported by the labor framework consisting of "male, productive, paid work" and "female, reproductive, unpaid work," while the trend implies problematic issues drown from the process of identification of care work as a subject of social and economic assessments. In this article, using the example of home elder care help, it will be shown that visibilization of care work through the LTCIS entails serious issues. These issues lie not only in the economic status of care workers but also in the normative aspect, including the assessment criteria of care work. On that basis, the limitations of the care work value system imposed as the norm by the LTCIS and the future direction of policy for assuring dignity in care work will be discussed.