Leiden University Student Repository

Pieterse, Elske (2019)

Japan and the care worker labor shortage: How the countermeasures of the Japanese government fall short

Bachelor thesis | Japanstudies (BA)

The population of Japan has been ageing rapidly in recent decades. This demographic change of a graying population causes various problems for the Japanese society.In the year 2000, in reaction to these demographic changes the Japanese government came up with a solution to remedy the lack of care workers: it introduced a new long-term care insurance system. Additionally, In 2006 the government introduced the first caregiver migration policy as part of a trade agreement, and the following year it began promoting innovations in healthcare technology. In this thesis, the main question I will try to answer is whether and how much these three measures are effective in terms of alleviating the labor shortage caused by the increasing need for eldercare.

Japan

care worker

labor shortage

countermeasures

Author

Pieterse, Elske

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Sociology and culture

Supervisors

Cwiertka, Katarzyna

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en