Comparative Research on role and function of Care Work in Japan

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Japanese style of Long-term Care which we call Kaigo is very different from Nursing Care or Long-term care in the Western World. Japanese Kaigo Care has both advantages and disadvantages. Main advantages are that law creates new concept of Socialization of Care, and also produced many Kaigo care workers. New job market were setup based upon Public Long-term Care Insurance, Kaigo Hoken, which had started as a Social Insurance in the year 2000. Main disadvantages are that made very different from International concept of Care. We worry about sustainability of Public Long-term Care Insurance not only its huge budgetary deficit but also lack of care workers to provide care services. We have conducted questionnaire surveys and interviews to care workers in Nursing homes in Fukuoka. We identified so called 3K and low income hypothesis are not most important variables. Our suggestions are to improve job conditions for the care workers and will match international standards.