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Relieved of Duty. Though most of Japan's aged continue to live with their children, particularly in rural areas, many others have been shunted into bleak housing projects or crowded nursing homes. "Both my sons have one-room homes and are married," explains Mrs. Take Kikuchi, a diminutive widow of 70, who lives in a nursing home on the outskirts of Tokyo. "I shuttled endlessly between them, but at last the message was so deafening that I had to leave them and come here." Adds Kotaro Uchida, 88, a retired Tokyo printer: "My son after the war told me that this thing transplanted from America called democracy meant everybody for himself and that he was therefore relieved of his duty to support me. I disagreed, but what could I do?"
Though the problem of Japan's aged still ranks low in priority, government officials have recently begun to take steps to alleviate the situation. Earlier this year, for example, Tokyo Governor Ryokichi Minobe launched a corps of volunteers to act as counselors for older people living alone. The biggest problem remains money. Since most firms have a mandatory retirement age of 55, middle-aged workers are faced with finding other means of support for 15 to 20 years. There is no Social Security in the American sense. National annuities and corporate pensions cover a limited number of workers, but they are woefully inadequate for a country where the cost of living rivals that of the U.S. Moreover, three-fourths of the 7,000,000 Japanese over 65 have little income of any kind. "What we need," says Dr. Sadamu Watanabe, "is a sweeping reform that makes it mandatory for the government to provide all old people with an adequate livelihood through their declining years." Watanabe should know better than anyone. At 80 he is Japan's leading gerontologist.