Conclusions: The Salience of Eldercare

Abstract

What emerges from this volume is a strong comparison of eldercare in two very diverse, but by no means entirely different or incomparable countries. Norway is not only an interesting case in and of itself, but also a good representative of the Scandinavian countries as a whole, which have similar welfare state models.¹ Japan on the other hand is a good, but far from perfect, representative of East Asia. Nonetheless, as a recent Pew study shows, in broad terms of eldercare and the aging society, Japan is quite similar to Korea, with China gradually converging toward Korea and Japan (Pew 2014). Japan is also important as the oldest and leading example of a wealthy and advanced non-western society. Japan is also literally the oldest nation in the world, with a median age of 45 (Pew 2014: 25), whereas Norway is only moderately old. This two- nation comparison also presents diversity in terms of size, with Japan being a large nation of over 125 million people, whereas Norway is a small nation of just five million. Both nations are aging rapidly, although Japan is aging faster.