ケア役割とキャリアをめぐる「困難」 ― 家族を介護する20代から30代女性の場合

In the 2010s, young people who care family members started to receiveattention in Japan. These young people, who began appearing in variousforms of media, lost the opportunity to choose a life course due to theircaring roles, and thus experience difficulties in forming a career path.Moreover, they are depicted as being isolated from schools and peernetworks, and are excluded from a multitude of systems related to caring.There is a gender difference in how these difficulties are depicted, however,in that they rarely feature problems or decisions surrounding career pathsfor young women who have undertaken carer roles. For this reason, it isnecessary to conduct a qualitative analysis that thoroughly analyzes theindividual experiences of actual young people who care their families.This paper will summarize the issues at hand by first reviewing theliterature on young people in contemporary Japan, and in particularon women who perform caring roles and who are transitioning fromadolescence to adulthood. This paper will also discuss the findings ofresearch on young adult carers in England. Second, while referencing theissues summarized above, this paper will analyze interviews conductedby the author with women in early adulthood who care family members（who began caring in their 20s）.The cases treated in the literature review and the subjects interviewedin the author’s survey differ in terms of age, history of becoming a carer,and social class. There may be a large disparity in how these factors impacta person’s life course. However, there are also similarities in the problemsthey have experienced until now, as well as those presumed to occur in thefuture.In addition, the subjects interviewed by the author are both older andcome from a higher social class compared to the cases in the literaturereview, but through their caring experiences, they are changing the waythey think about their own futures, lives, and caring in general.To summarize the literature review and interview case study, theeffects that caring has on a person’s career or life course are truly diverse.Consequently, it is necessary to perform additional research and analysison young people̶especially women̶who care family members, as wellas the effects caring has on life courses and careers after caring has ended