Japan has experienced various social and cultural phenomena related to aging society and undergone many trials and errors on elderly housing welfare prior to Korea. Her elderly population rate exceeded 7% in 1970, 14% in 1994 and 20% in 2005. This is ...
Japan has experienced various social and cultural phenomena related to aging society and undergone many trials and errors on elderly housing welfare prior to Korea. Her elderly population rate exceeded 7% in 1970, 14% in 1994 and 20% in 2005. This is one of the fastest aging speed among aged societies such as France, Spain, U.K., and so on. In 2006 year, the life expectancy of Japanese recorded the highest as of 79 year old of men and 86 year old of women. Korea is undergoing the fastest aging speed in the world as Japan was. So the Japan's various experiences on elderly housing will be of benefit to Korea preparing national elderly housing welfare
There are a lot of elderly housing types in Japan in order to meet various needs of the older person and the change of social situations. Elderly housings can be divided into three categories ; the elderly housing for healthy older persons and the elderly care facility for healthy and unhealthy older ones. Elderly housings include public rental housings run by local governments and public companies, and private rental housings such as well furnished elderly housing, rental housing designated only for the elderly and rental housing which the elderly can use. Elderly care facilities for the healthy elderly include full fee charging elderly housing, elderly homes, low fee charging elderly homes and care houses. Elderly care facilities for the unhealthy elderly consist of full fee charging elderly care homes, group homes for the dementia, elderly health facilities, nursing homes, elderly hospitals, and so on.
Japan's elderly welfare system was started from the enactment of Elderly Welfare Law in 1963. In the early stage, major means for the elderly welfare were fulfilled through "the elderly facility". Elderly facilities were mainly focused on poor relief and functioned as the shelter accommodating the poor elderly. According the developments of the society, Japanese government emphasized the importance of care services of the frail elderly rather than the poor relief. After that, Public Housing Law and Elderly Health Law have been emerged in order to seek home care for the elderly. This is because "elderly care facilities" have been proved to not be efficient for the delivery of elderly welfare services nor satisfactory to the frail older person as in the advanced western countries. Therefore, based on the concept of the "Normalization", daily services have been provided for the elderly in order that they can live at their own home in the community for themselves. When the elderly become frail, they can be accommodated at the facility serving 'housing + daily services + care' in the community. At the same time, various systems have been introduced in order to promote elderly housing through Elderly Housing Law. In this case, considering the budget, the government make use of private capital and put emphasis on the renovation of existing rental housing. As a result, Japan aims to not only reduce elderly welfare expenses but also increase elderly satisfaction. Emphasis on non-institutionalization and in-home services, regional characterization, harmony between Hard and Soft, user oriented services, sustainability, universal design and so on are sought for the sake of those goals.