History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
Second Stream: New Technologies in Ageing Societies
Friday Sept. 26
09.00 - 11.00 session 7 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair Luísa Oliveira
7.5. Author(s): Dethlefs, Noriko
Institution: Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong
Professional Category: Lecturer, Modern Languages Program (Coordinator of Japanese Section)
City: Sidney
Country: Australia
E-mail: ndethlef@uow.edu.au
Technology options for aged care in Japan
Demographic changes after the Second World War have resulted in the Japanese people having the world's highest life expectancy. This, coupled with the declining birth rate, has caused a rapid growth in the proportion of aged people in the population and a declining proportion of the population in the workforce to support the non-working population. At the same time, post-War changes in social conditioning and family structures are diminishing the availability and reliability of family members to act as care-givers to the aged.
Historical evidence suggests that the Japanese people, and in particular the government, are open to finding technological solutions to address their social and economic problems. One method of dealing with the scarce resources for aged care in Japan is to develop and utilise technology that assists the elderly to maintain as much independence for as long as possible and to assist care-givers by easing their workload.
This paper classifies the use of technology to help aged care in Japan today into three options. Option One relies only standard technology from other countries; Option Two calls for significant domestic investment in high-level technology, exemplified by robotics; Option Three concentrates on developing and using smaller-scale technology such as barrier-free technology. The development of robotics and barrier-free technologies and the assumptions underlying their development for aged care are examined.
Articulating these options and discussing some likely consequences for Japanese society provides a tool to understand implicit value judgements for promoting various technology for aged care in Japan.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006