Supporting Caretakers of the Elderly in Japan

Policy Problem Statement

Although Marubeni currently employs one of the most developed elder care support programs in Japan, current elder care initiatives must be enhanced to provide adequate support to the growing population of care giving employees.

Marubeni currently hosts caregiving workshops in major metropolitan areas, provides a handbook to all employees containing resources on how to navigate the complicated nursing insurance and services available. In addition, the company goes above and beyond the national policy of providing 5 days of paid nursing leave and offers a maximum of 50 days a year. However, only 710 of the company’s nearly 40,000 employees attended workshops in 2013 and Rie Konomi, director of the diversity management team, has commented that few employees take advantage of paid family nursing leaves.

In addition, there has been a growing trend of employees refusing overseas transfers, citing elder care as the reason. This is despite the company’s efforts, which include contracting with a non-profit organization that connects the elderly individual to local support and ensures services such as assistance with hospital check ins. This inadequacy of current initiatives is especially concerning as 30% of Marubeni employees are overseas at any given time.

There are several possible reasons why these current initiatives have proven inadequate:

1. Despite Marubeni’s intent that family care leave be used generously for employees to meet with care managers or set up care plans for their family members, employees tend not take time off until their family member requires full time attention. This is because the collectivistic culture of Japan increases the guilt experienced when taking a leave of absence.
2. The workshops and generous leave policies employed by Marubeni are relatively new – family support work leaves have been allowed since 2006 while the seminars were begun in 2010. The fact that less than 2% of employees have attended workshops when 80% of employees expect to be responsible for nursing family members by 2016 indicates the likelihood that many employees who will need care support in the near future are not aware of the available services.
3. Although the company guarantees that local people in the community of the family member will provide support while the employee is oversees, the employee has little control over what kind of assistance is given. The stand in caretaker is likely not as familiar with specific needs or able to be as devoted to the care as the employee would have been.