Thus even today, not a small number of middle-aged professional women, such as veteran school teachers, quit their jobs to take care of their own or their husband's aging parents. In the future, however, ordinary Japanese people will change their attitude, and place the primary responsibility on the public long-term care insurance program. This is because in the insurance system the insured can naturally demand the insurer to provide the contracted benefits as a right whether the insuree have children to depend upon as a caregiver. Thus, the obligation of children toward the care of aging parents will become much lighter than at present. The expected role of children, especially that of the daughters-in-law, will be to provide auxiliary care voluntarily when the services provided by the insurance do not seem sufficient for maintaining the life of aging parents at a decent level.
It seems to me that the public long-term care insurance will give a finishing touch to the democratization and modernization of Japan that started half a century ago in the miserable social and economic conditions resulting from the tragic war against universal human values, freedom, democracy, and equality of all citizens.
