An independent and mutually supportive retirement as a moral ideal in contemporary Japan

Abstract

In contemporary Japanese society the ability to care for oneself and other senior citizens has become a defining feature of good retirement. The capitalist Japanese state has historically mobilised moral virtues to foster a sense of productive citizenship among senior citizens and their family members. After the country failed to recover from the long recessionary era, policies regarding the welfare of senior citizens have shifted, from a focus on familial care to an emphasis on individual responsibility. This paper traces these shifts in moral virtues since the 1970s to elucidate how ideas of ‘independence’ and ‘mutual support’ have become persuasive forms of virtue for senior citizens, particularly retired corporate workers, in the current neoliberal climate. The paper will also draw from my recent fieldwork among elderly Japanese to contrast their experiences with the state's expectations. The independent and mutually supportive retirement as a performative cultural production was often experienced as one of intense dislocation, rather than belonging, in a productivist state.

(Re)constructing Ageing Futures: Insights from Migration in Asia and Beyond

“…There are individual articles on retirement migration to non-Western countries; however, collective deliberation on how ageing and migration are distinct in non-Western settings (both as source and destination sites) is visibly lacking. Examples of individual articles on retirement migration to non-Western countries, specifically in Asia, include Toyota, 2006;Ono, 2008;Toyota & Xiang, 2012;Ormond, 2014;Green, 2015;Bender et al, 2017;Botterill, 2017;Shakuto, 2018. 3. An exception is Horn and Schweppe's (2016) edited collection on transnational ageing and future challenges.…”

Postwork intimacy

“…Because Japan has failed to recover from a long recessionary era in which youth have faced precarious labor conditions, the Japanese state's aging policy tasks elderly citizens with looking after their own welfare and that of others (Shakuto , 185–86). In a country where one's subjectivity has been closely tied to a sense of productivity, the reorientation of life away from work to oneself in retirement has inspired important debates about the potential for a “postretirement” life (Thang et al.…”

“…, 552; Morioka and Nakabayashi ). Many Japanese remain wealthy and healthy into old age, and hence leading them to conceive of retirement as a “project” to work toward (Shakuto , 189).…”

“…During their husbands’ long absences from home, women had established their own networks of community with children, neighbors, and friends, independent of their husbands. In contrast, men found it harder to maintain friendship beyond work (Shakuto , 188). Most of their former colleagues lived far from each other, and few invested in relationships outside work.…”