WUNRN
JAPAN - LONGER LIVES, LOWER INCOMES
FOR MANY WOMEN
For many Japanese women, old age is becoming synonymous with
poverty and loneliness. Credit: Isado/CC-BY-ND-2.0
- When Hiroko Taguchi
retired this past April, at the age of 64, from her job as an insurance sales
agent, she joined the rapidly growing ranks of Japan’s aging women who now
outnumber their male counterparts.
Taguchi, a divorcee who lives alone, is heavily dependent on her
pension to support what will likely be a lengthy retirement, given that women
in Japan live, on average, about seven years longer than men. A survey
conducted earlier this year by the Health and Welfare Ministry revealed that
women account for 87.3 percent of Japan’s record number of 50,000 centenarians.
“I
am lucky I did not quit my job when I married, as was the norm for women of my
age,” Taguchi told IPS. Indeed, she is one of a very small number of women in
Japan for whom old age is not synonymous with poverty and loneliness.
Most
of her contemporaries who were part-time workers or full-time homemakers in
their youth and middle age now draw monthly public pensions of just 500 dollars
or less – barely enough to cover their living costs.
A
patriarchal social structure that has boxed women into the role of caretaker
and homemaker is largely responsible for the vulnerable situation many old
Japanese women now find themselves in.
According
to government data, 70 percent of women leave their jobs when they start a
family, returning to the workplace – often as part-time workers – only when
their children are older; this pattern significantly reduces their chances of
drawing a decent pension after retirement.
Additionally,
the fact that women are experiencing increasingly long life spans means that
many outlive their husbands and become entirely reliant on the state welfare
system.
Social
experts here say Taguchi’s sunset years provide a spotlight into the diverse
issues that women in Japan’s graying society face today.
“More
women than men face poverty in their old age given their (life spans) and lower
incomes,” pointed out Professor Keiko Higuchi, an expert on aging populations
at Tokyo Kasei University, as well as an advisor to the government on gender
and policies that affect the elderly.
Aging in a patriarchal society
Japan
currently has the world’s fastest aging society. Experts estimate that by 2025
more than 27 percent of the population will be over 65 years old.
Higuchi,
who is also a prominent women’s rights activist, has lobbied the government
long and hard to develop policies that meet the needs of elderly women.
Among
the many issues that aging women face are loneliness, higher prospects of
disability and growing poverty in a nation that is grappling with a huge public
debt and threatening further cuts in social services and state welfare.
Official
statistics from the Health and Welfare Ministry confirm this grim picture –
government data shows that 80 percent of those over 65 years and living alone
are women, mostly divorcees and widows.
Women
also comprise 70 percent of the population in nursing homes, with poverty affecting
25 percent of the female population over 75 years compared to 20 percent among
males.
The
Ministry also reported that in 2011 there were almost 420,000 women over the
age of 65 who depended on welfare handouts, compared to 324,000 men.
According
to the prominent Japanese feminist Junko Fukazawa, who counsels women facing
domestic violence – a risk she says is increasingly common for older women
living with their husbands or sons – deep-rooted gender discrimination makes
women even more vulnerable to the troubles of the sunset years.
Social
traditions that have forced women to take care of the family while men worked
outside “is the prime reason why women give up their jobs when they have
children, (and end up with) lower paying jobs and financial instability in
their old age”, Fukazawa told IPS.
“The
situation is ironic,” she added, pointing out that those who have traditionally
been the primary caregivers for young and old alike are now becoming a
population that needs the most support.
The
critical need to focus national aging policies on women is gaining traction
around the world. A new report, ‘Aging
in the Twenty-First Century’, released in September by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), calls on governments and other stakeholders to take
heed of the mounting body of evidence that women are living longer than men,
and adjust their national plans accordingly.
The
report documented figures around the world that showed that for every 100 women
aged 80 years and over, there are only 61 men.
Aging
in Japan, the world’s third largest economy, illustrates some of these pressing
issues against the backdrop of a shrinking working population, which is expected
to plummet from 80 to 52 million by 2050.
For
the younger generation of Japanese women, who are coming of age during a time
of government austerity and desperate attempts to reduce public spending, the
forecast is alarming.
Already
this generation of women is beginning to feel the crunch of poverty, with
Labour Department statistics pointing to a rise in lower-paid part-time female
employment, a trend that indicates an erosion of retirement stability for a
large portion of the labour force.
For
Higuchi, “The current aging picture clearly shows that Japan’s economic growth
policies have eroded traditional family values that protected old people and
have been particularly unfair to women.”
Meanwhile,
women like Taguchi are moving cautiously down the road. “Acutely aware that I
would face a lonely future, I have saved for decades and will continue to do
so. At least I can avoid poverty – I hope so, anyway.”