The Elderly Care Function Of East Asian Family

Since East Asian countries entered aging society, their social structures have undergone great changes and the growing number of the elderly population makes elderly care study more popular. Low birth rate and aging trend in East Asia exert pressures on elderly-care function of family and Changes of modern family also have effects on it. In addition, as the social security systems in this region have improved, the traditional family elderly-care function is facing new challenges.Based on a comparative approach of the family elderly-care function among Japan, South Korea and China, the paper studies the East Asian family elderly-care function. Firstly, from the points of achieving the elderly-care targets, adapting the elderly-care environment, integrating the family elderly-care value system and maintaining the family elderly-care system, this paper describes the family elderly-care function of Japan, South Korea and China and summarizes their characteristic. Secondly, this paper compares the family elderly-care function among these three countries, and analyzes the similarities and dissimilarities among them. Finally, by summarizing and learning the experience of Japan and South Korea family elderly-care function, this paper puts forward several suggestions for the development of china family elderly-care function.By the comparative analysis, the basic conclusions are following:First of all, Japan has highly achieved the elderly-care targets and adapted to the changed family elderly-care environment well with a weak elderly-care value system. Family in Japan is being integrated into the existing social elderly-care system, showing a "beyond family" phenomenon. South Korea has achieved the elderly-care targets and adapted to the changed environment at a low level. But the integrating effects of the family elderly-care value system, which makes their family more important and showing a "strong family" phenomenon, are so strong that their family elderly-care system will continue for a long time. In China, the elderly-care targets are achieved at a basic level. But with weak integrating effects of the family elderly-care value system, China cannot adapt to the changed family elderly-care environment well. The most important thing for China is to integrate the binary pattern of its family elderly-care system.Secondly, these three countries have the same cultural foundation, policy power and path preferences. However, in the regard of combining with the social security system, Japan’s family and social security system are highly integrated. South Korea’s family is independent of its social security system. In China, urban family elderly-care function is similar to Japan and suburban family elderly-care function is similar to South Korea. Besides, Japan has the highest levels on exerting the family elderly-care function. China’s elderly-care policy and welfare system are more coherent.Thirdly, the challenges of China’s family elderly-care function are including the constraints of its binary pattern, the lacking responses of social security system to its family elderly-care, and the lower combination levels of its family and social security system. By learning the experience of Japan and South Korea, China should not only attach importance to the basic role of family elderly-care function, but also to avoid the excessive dependence on it. What’s more, China should make full use of social old-age resources and develop the old-age security system, in order to improve the combination levels of the family and the social security system.