EXCLUSIVE: Japan to use elderly care funds for aging recluses

January 16, 2020

Tokyo--Japan will allow municipalities to use elderly nursing care insurance funds to deal with the issue of middle-age social recluses supported by their parents, informed sources told Jiji Press on Thursday.

The health ministry is considering legislation to revise related laws so that municipal governments will be able to use elderly care insurance premiums collected from their residents and other related funds to finance consultation services to resolve the so-called 8050 problem.

The problem refers to a difficult situation in which aged parents, typically those in their 80s, support their "hikikomori" shut-in children, in their 50s in many cases, who have been socially isolated for a long time.

The 8050 problem encompasses many fields including nursing care, economic hardships and physical and other disabilities.

The ministry is calling on municipalities to offer one-stop consultation services for households in need of help because of 8050 and other problems.

The ministry also hopes that the services will help households raising children while nursing aged parents. Another expected positive effect is suicide prevention.

Under the envisaged system, the ministry plans to allow municipalities to spend eldery care insurance funds on the one-stop consultation services if the services are combined with the existing local support centers for medical and elderly care issues, the sources said.

The ministry aims to start the system in fiscal 2021. Necessary legislation will be introduced at the ordinary session of the Diet, the country's parliament, from Monday.

Separately, the ministry is considering creating a new subsidy program for seamless assistance in the four fields of elderly care, economic hardships, disabilities and child-rearing, the sources said.

The ministry hopes to secure at least tens of billions of yen in its fiscal 2021 budget for the new program to be created through the integration of existing subsidies in the four fields, the sources added.