Keynote Speech

Moderator: Professor Shingo Shimada (Heinrich-Heine-Universität)

Yayoi Saito ist Professorin für Humanwissenschaften an der Universität Osaka und Expertin auf dem Gebiet der Altenpflege in Japan.

Auf dem 18. Deutschsprachigen Japanologentag wird sie die Keynote Speech mit dem Titel "Care and Culture: How does the Japanese ‚Community-Based Integrated Care System' Work?" halten.

Professor Saito hat sowohl in Japan als auch in Skandinavien Forschungen durchgeführt und ist Herausgeberin zahlreicher Publikationen zu den Themen Altenpflege in Japan und Wohlfahrtssysteme im Vergleich.

Sie ist Mitglied der Japanese Society for the Study of Social Welfare und der Japanese Research Association. Sie ist außerdem zurzeit Vorsitzende der Japanese Association for Northern European Studies.

Lesen Sie mehr über Frau Professor Saito: http://welfare.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/faculty-members.html

Keynote Speech

Care and Culture: How does the Japanese “Community-Based Integrated Care System” work?

Yayoi Saito, Osaka University

The “Community-Based Integrated Care System” is based on the Long-term Care Insurance System and has been promoted in Japan as an eldercare policy. This system is designed to enable elderly people to live at home with healthcare and long-term care. One major feature of the system is that it expects active volunteers’ work. While community members are the recipients of care services, they are also expected to be care service providers who carry out care prevention activities and small practical tasks such as cleaning and shopping. This policy of reducing the responsibility of public services has also been widely criticized. The German social security system including pensions, healthcare and long-term care has served as a model for Japan’s social security system. However, the model that has become established in Japan has been influenced by Japanese culture and customs and it was changed into another system with specific characteristics. In this context, how do families, professionals and volunteers work together to support frail elderly people? In my presentation, I am going to reveal some of the aspects of contemporary Japanese society, which has the world’s largest population of elderly people.