Guest Speaker: Naoko Soma, “Double and Multiple Responsibilities of Care in Asia: Current Issues and Challenges”

Guest Speaker: Naoko Soma, Professor of International Social Sciences, Yokohama National University

June 22, 2022
2:30 – 4:00 pm EST
Rm 240, 725 Spadina Ave. Toronto
and by zoom: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/88154198390

“Double and Multiple Responsibilities of Care in Asia: Current Issues and Challenges”

Abstract:

An increasing number of people in East Asia perform “double care,” where they are caring for both children and the elderly simultaneously. This is the result of the concurrent trends of population aging and advancing ages of marriage and childbearing. This presentation will first review the current situation and policies regarding people dealing with multiple responsibilities of care in East Asia, especially in Japan, based on our research projects. By comparing the development of social policy for “young carers,”  who have become a new policy issue in recent years in Japan, some interesting contrasts emerge in welfare politics in problematizing issues of multiple responsibilities of care. Furthermore, I will examine the development of intergenerational care policy in Japan from the perspective of “Caring Democracy” to challenge the familialism or male-breadwinner model embedded in social policy with the goal of envisioning policy change in this low fertility society.

image: Mstyslav Chernov (attribution link) via Wikimedia Commons