過疎山村に住む高齢者への家族による支援状況 : 高齢者の生活支援のあり方を求めて

We have carried out for these ten years the study on the real living situation of elderly people living alone in a depopulated area. Through our study we made clear that they have to manage various problems and difficulties to maintain their daily lives. It also became clear that elderly people had various mixed thought toward their children who live apart from them.We carried out in the last year the questionnaire research to children of the elderly people, to know about following matters；①how children take care their mother and/ or father, ②how children get in touch with their mother and/ or father, ③whether children have any plan to come back to the place where their mother and/ or father live, ④what children are planning to do when their mother and/ or father can not live any more by themselves, ⑤others.As results it was made clear that the most of elderly people were receiving some supports from their children and／or relatives to maintain their daily lives. However, most of children and elderly people do not have any idea what they can do when the situation that elderly people can not maintain their daily lives any more by themselves has come. If they faced to the situation, children have to move to the place where mother and/ or father have lived. Otherwise elderly people have to move to the place where their children have lived. This comes from mainly two facts. One is that in Japan there are still traditional idea that children should care their elderly people. Another is that various social support systems have not been organized yet. There are many cases that both are difficult to move due to such various problems as the present situation of job seeking in depopulated area, housing situation in urban area, and so on.It is clear that Japanese society has the urgent need to establish the social support systems for elderly people to maintain their daily lives in their own houses and the communities where they have lived long