This article explores the rise in significance of communal leisure activities as a vehicle for boosting the health of the large senior population in Japan.   It analyzes the significance of these leisure activities from both the perspective of a national government seeking to reduce age-associated debility and from the perspectives of men in their sixties.  Ethnographic case studies provide an in-depth view into the gendered dimensions of men’s pursuit of leisure in communal settings.

Katrina Moore received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in June 2007. She is now a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. She specializes in the study of aging, gender, and personhood in Japan. Her research interests include the political economy of aging societies, health and illness, and social inequality. She is currently revising her dissertation into a book manuscript on leisure, health, and demographic change in urban Japan.

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Japan Foundation and Wenner-Gren Foundation for her research in Japan.

Seniors in painting circle in Tokyo's Shinjuku Gyoen. Photo by Cedric Sam. 2005

Introduction

Japan has one of the world’s largest “silver” populations, with more than twenty percent of its citizens over age 65. Due to persistent low fertility, negligible migration, and mass longevity, the proportion of the elderly continues to grow. Population projections indicate that this percentage will rise to 28 percent by 2025.¹ Japan also boasts one of the world’s highest longevity rates: on average, women live to 87 years and men to 81 years. These high rates are a testament to Japan’s great public health achievements as a modern nation-state. At the same time, these rates raise major concerns for the government: the growing number of elderly poses a risk to the nation’s social security system and even more to Japan’s national health care and Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) systems.

One of the most intriguing phenomena to develop in the context of the rising elderly population is the growth of communal leisure activities. Various leisure pursuits have become popular among older men and women including sports, language, and the arts. Fifty-five percent of Japanese citizens over age 60 are involved in a communal activity.²  These leisure pursuits are undertaken in group environments, in either loosely structured hobby circles or more formal schools of learning. The practices of learning together, getting along with others, and conversing with different people are considered important for maintaining health in old age. While many of these leisure activities also involve training of the body and thus have direct physical benefits, many practitioners articulate their contribution to health in explicitly interpersonal terms.

This article examines the promotion of healthy longevity through leisure from both the perspective of national policy and that of a case study group. Furthermore, it illuminates how this demographic phenomenon intersects with gender dynamics. It specifically shows how men participate in mixed-gender leisure communities to re-construct a masculine identity that they lose in retirement. Many consider heterosexual socializing to be extremely important to health in old age. Men make a direct link between this form of sociality and their ability to sustain vitality. This point is of crucial importance for understanding the stakes that individual men bring to bear on their pursuit of leisure in communal circles.

I begin by providing some background on recent reforms instituted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. I then explore the emergence of group leisure activities as a form of preventive health care. Next, I provide ethnographic case studies of two men in their 60s who engage in social dancing and foreign language conversation.³ I conclude by showing the interconnections across shifts in government policy, emergence of leisure communities, and individual men’s pursuit of leisure.

Pro-Longevity Policies: Containing the Health Care Costs of an Aging Population

Typically, population scholars have analyzed governments’ attempts to deal with aging populations through pro-natalist policies that aim to raise the society’s birthrate.⁴ Yet, the Japanese case shows that attention must also be paid to the pursuit of what I shall call “pro-longevity” practices, which focus on maximizing the health of citizens in old age. These practices seek to increase the number of years senior citizens are mobile and independent, and reduce the years they require long-term care, thus narrowing the gap between healthy life expectancy and total life expectancy.

Historically, Japan has managed to keep national expenditure on health care at a relatively low level compared to other OECD countries. This is the case in spite of the fact that health care coverage is universal in Japan and guaranteed to all citizens throughout their lives. National expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP was 8.0 percent in 2004, compared with 10.5 percent in France, and 15.3 percent in the United States.⁵ On a per capita basis, spending on health care in Japan was $2,249 USD compared with $3,159 in France and $6,102 in the United States.⁶ Under the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program, the government also guarantees care services to frail elderly citizens. The LTCI, which was initially implemented as the Gold Plan, provides a series of care programs, including institutional care, day care, and home helpers. It was created in response to the recognition that families could not shoulder the full burden of care for the elderly.⁷

Low economic growth over the past ten years, combined with a steadily increasing number of people over age 65, has nonetheless created a situation where financing health and long-term care for senior citizens has become a major fiscal challenge. The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has introduced a series of reforms that will reduce the cost of the LTCI from approximately $190 to $160 billion by 2025.⁸ 

The revisions of the health and long-term care insurance systems have two key features. First, the elderly must now pay, out of their own pockets, some of the costs of medical care, meals, and accommodation services that had previously been covered by the LTCI.⁹ In addition, starting in April 2008, the co-payment rate for health care visits to doctors and hospitals for patients aged 70 to 74 will be doubled from 10 percent to 20 percent. The reforms increasingly transfer the cost of medical and long-term care to citizens and place the onus on citizens to proactively monitor the incidence of disease and debility that could place them at risk for requiring care in an institutional setting.

Second, the reforms focus on preventive health care programs in the form of nation-wide exercise and nutritional programs that reduce the incidence of life-style related diseases that result in old-age debility. Each prefecture has devised a plan that will lead to overall reductions in the average length of hospital stays and the number of citizens suffering from or at risk for lifestyle-related diseases.¹⁰

While the elderly are the focus of this article, it is worth pointing out an important trend. Middle-aged citizens are also seen as a matrix of risk factors that must be monitored in order to prevent the development of full-blown illness. As of April 2008, all citizens between the ages of 40 and 74 will be required to undergo annual health exams. This comprehensive health screening includes measurements of patients’ waistlines as well as their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and Body Mass Index. The purpose is to detect lifestyle diseases at an early stage, identify groups that are at “high risk” for conditions such as metabolic syndrome, and provide them with guidance on nutrition, exercise and lifestyle-related diseases.¹¹  Between 2008 and 2012, the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare seeks to reduce by 10 percent the number of people in the “high risk” categories and in doing so reduce the cost that ill health will place on national economic productivity at a time when the labor force is shrinking. Tracking the development and results from these health programs will provide crucial insights to the potential impact of public health policy choices on the lengthening of the healthy human lifespan.

Forging Ties in Groups of Leisurely Socializing

A key phenomenon that has emerged in the context of population aging is the rise in importance of communal leisure activities. No longer simply a diversion from work or a form of relaxation, leisure is now a vehicle for engaging in preventive health measures and remaining healthy in old age. Some leisure groups are loose-knit communities where senior citizens pursue hobbies together in a relaxed format. Other groups are more structured and take the form of a study group or class where the elderly gather to learn a skill under the guidance of a teacher. Students embark on field trips together, stage recitals, and even compete in international competitions. Many of these communal leisure groups are created by senior citizens themselves.

Activities at circles and schools include dance, gateball (a sport similar to croquet), singing, cooking, and hiking. They typically entail an active use of the body. This may suggest that their value lies in counteracting the sedentary lifestyles that come with old age. Yet it is critical to note that even when these activities have physical benefits, practitioners articulate their contribution to preventing decline in old age in explicitly social and interpersonal terms. They state, for example, that pursuing dance as a communal leisure activity helps them remain conscious of their appearance, comportment, and interactions with others. Practitioners tend to emphasize the social exchange between circle members.  Senior citizens believe that conversing with different people in these groups and getting along with other members is important to their health. Some invoke the concept of kinchō, or productive tension, to explain the benefits that come from sociality. Kinchō denotes a state of preparing oneself and remaining alert in anticipation of social intercourse. While too much kinchō can be debilitating, many Japanese believe that they must have the appropriate amount of kinchō to avoid declining into a state of indolence. Senior citizens who remain in their homes are considered to be at greater risk of decline than those who maintain an active schedule of social activities. Pursuing a leisure activity in a group is thus considered preferable to doing so alone in one’s own home.

Another reason why leisure activities are considered important has to do with changes in the composition of Japanese households.  Since the 1970s, there has been a steady rise in the number of single and two-person households among the elderly. Although this trend is more prominent in urban areas, rural towns have also experienced a similar trend.¹² In 1975, 8.6 percent (611,000) of the nation’s one-person households were inhabited by elderly persons aged 65 and over. In 2004, the proportion had risen to 20.9 percent (3,730,000 households). Households comprised of couples age 65 and over have also increased steadily. In 1975, 6.2 percent (443,000) of 2-person households were inhabited by people 65 and over. By 2004, this proportion had increased to 21.8 percent (3,899,000 households).¹³

The change in household composition indicates that many elderly must find opportunities for social exchange outside of the home rather than expecting to engage with extended families residing in the same household. As Koike states, these leisure and learning communities help “mutual strangers” (tanin dōshi) in Japan’s aging society to “construct a human network.”¹⁴ It is important to note the coupling of the words network and strangers. It foregrounds the importance of learning and leisure in later life as a vehicle for unrelated people to come together. These communities serve as fictive families in aging Japan, where ties are forged through a common pursuit of a leisure activity rather than simply through familial blood ties.

State Support of Communal Leisure and Learning

The government has popularized the phrase “pin pin korori”, an onomatopoeic phrase that describes how the ideal elder should live in old age. The words “pin pin” suggest an elderly person bouncing and bursting with health, while korori evokes a motion of their dying a swift death. Nagano Prefecture first popularized the pin pin korori program.¹⁵ It has garnered national acclaim for being the prefecture with the highest longevity rates for men and the lowest rate of hospitalization. Senior centers around the country have followed Nagano’s lead and begun their own pin pin korori exercise groups.

Local governments are one of the chief advocates of communal leisure activities. They view these activities as one vital means to bring senior citizens out of their homes to gather in public spaces and maintain their health through social interaction.

As a local government official in the city of Saitama explained:

Senior citizens have to get out of the house and regularly mix with others. Without this, they become weaker both psychologically and physically. They may “withdraw and hibernate” (hikikomoru) in the space of the home. Going out and conversing and mixing with others in a place where some activity is being held is really important.¹⁶ 

Local governments in other municipalities similarly encourage senior citizens to leave their homes and mingle with others in public spaces. For example, Shinagawa City Ward in Tokyo, where I conducted extensive research in 2004-2005, has devised an innovative program called “bath of encounter” (deai no yu). This program distributes weekly discount passes for senior citizens to use at local public baths.  Senior citizens bathe together, and after bathing, sing karaoke.¹⁷

State support of leisure and learning among the elderly extends back to the 1960s.¹⁸ Following a UNESCO conference on adult education in 1965, the national government incorporated the term lifelong learning (shōgai gakushū) into policy discussions. It subsequently introduced a wide range of classes for citizens over 60. The Prime Minister’s Office established a special council on lifelong learning in 1984, and the Japanese Diet enacted the Law for the Promotion of Lifelong Learning in 1990.¹⁹  Today, lifelong learning divisions exist in most local government offices around the country, and they place special emphasis on facilitating learning and socializing opportunities among senior citizens.

For example, Shinagawa City Ward has established the Silver University²⁰  for residents of Shinagawa Ward age 60 and above. It offers two forms of education: one is the “encounter and mingle” (fureai) academy which offers a three-year program and the second is a prep school (juku). In the fureai academy, first-year students enroll in discussion seminars and explore topics such as designing a lifestyle after retirement or maintaining mental health after 60.  They also embark on fieldtrips.  In the second year, students enroll in more formal courses where they study academic subjects in their chosen fields. They graduate after fulfilling six semesters’ worth of credits. The other educational program available to students within the Silver University, called the “prep school for adding moisture” (uruoi juku), offers a diverse range of classes under headings such as health and sports, culture and beauty, cooking, and tea and flower arrangement. Students must be 60 and older to join this school as well. The prep school has a less structured format than the Silver University.  Students may enroll in one class for one semester or in multiple classes without seeking to attain credits that count toward a degree.

From Providing Enrichment to Encouraging Self-Sufficiency

While communal leisure and learning activities for the elderly have been available since the 1960s, an important shift has occurred in national discourse about the significance of these activities. Initially, education for senior citizens was conceptualized as providing enrichment to their lives. The elderly were viewed as a neglected group that had suffered immensely during the Second World War.²¹ Various services and programs, including clubs, were created specifically for them. For example, local government spending in the category of “welfare for the aged” jumped tenfold from 41 to 450 billion yen between 1969 and 1974.²²  Pension benefits for current recipients were doubled, and medical care and health care services for the elderly were expanded.

Many of the programs for the elderly that were instituted in the 1960s are operating today, but the rationale for their provision has shifted from enrichment toward ensuring an active senior population that will remain self-sufficient and independent in old age. By framing the quest for lifelong learning in the language of individual initiative (jihatsuteki ishi), local governments emphasize learning as a moral choice that individuals should make in order to remain vital citizens.²³

Equally significant, and mirroring this shift toward “self-sufficiency,” is the change in funding structure for these classes. Local governments have been scaling back their subsidization of classes and instead encouraging senior citizens to create their own networks of learning.²⁴ For example, in Shinagawa Ward, the Lifelong Education Promotion Unit funds the administration and facilities costs for students in the Silver University in the first term of a course. At the end of the first term, it asks students interested in pursuing this learning to take over the administration of the course, collect fees from the participants, and pay the teacher. The ward office will continue to partially subsidize the cost of the room where the classes are held, but it hands over the rest of the course administration costs to the elderly students themselves. 

Private-sector leisure and learning industries have focused on promoting the health benefits of circle activities. Various schools market classes and hobbies in this spirit, emphasizing that such activities will help seniors remain healthy. They have adopted the state’s language of helping seniors remain “self-sufficient” in their old age. For example, the “Better Home Association,” which runs 18 cooking schools throughout Japan, has opened cooking classes for senior citizens.²⁵ Some of the classes are specifically tailored to men 60 years and older who have never cooked before. Men are invited to learn food preparation techniques in a man-friendly environment and to empower themselves so that they can cook for themselves and for their spouses rather than purchase food in department stores and convenience stores.

Gendered Dimensions of Leisure

Men conceptualize the value of social exchange in leisure circles differently from women.²⁶ They participate in leisure communities to sustain a healthy self not only through exercise and interpersonal exchange but specifically through heterosexual sociality. I use the phrase “heterosexual sociality” to indicate a sexual dynamic that is not about intimate sexual exchange but is nonetheless anchored in comporting the self as a sexual being. 

To illustrate this dynamic, I provide extensive subject-centered ethnographic accounts of the lives of two older men. This perspective is particularly important for studies of demographic aging, where the elderly frequently emerge as statistics but remain curiously absent as subjects unto themselves. These vignettes demonstrate that the expression of gendered, sexual dimensions of the self in interpersonal relations is of central importance to men’s perception of their own health and vitality. The vignettes also illustrate how men join leisure circles to constitute a new social fabric after losing previously available sources of masculine identity, such as a marital relationship and full-time employment.

An assumption that informs the discourse of aging in Japan is that men who have devoted their entire adult lives to work, sometimes in one institution, are more susceptible to decline in old age than are women. The reason for this is that upon retirement men suffer a sudden loss of social networks and institutional affiliations. Many cultural jokes exist about men who languish in the home after retirement.²⁷ In comparison, women are considered less likely to experience social isolation in their 60s. Women have been involved in multiple domains of social life throughout their adult lives: from children’s education and neighborhood activities, to part-time work and hobbies. Through these activities, they have built up a large array of social networks which they may continue to tap into during their 60s and onward.

The men I interviewed defined health-seeking behavior in terms of their capacity to engage in interpersonal relations with women. Men were far more likely than women to define health in terms of their capacity to be conscious of and engage in interpersonal relations with the opposite sex.

Dancing the Rhumba

Kubota-san, age 68, is a self-employed electrician who lost his wife to cancer when he was in his early sixties.²⁸ He has four children and ten grandchildren and lives in the city of Yokohama.  He converted part of his home into a dance studio when he was in his mid-60s. On the day we met in the summer of 2004, two colorful posters in the windows of his house advertised his studio: “Social Dance” and “Relaxation.” Dancing shoes were arranged in a neat row along one wall, women’s dancing clothes hung above the shoes, and the energizing sounds of the rhumba streamed from the audio system. Kubota-san was dressed in a dark blue t-shirt and cargo shorts. We sat across from each other on sofas and sipped from glasses of iced coffee as we spoke about his career as an electrician, his marriage, and his decision to create a dance circle in his home. The interview gave me a window into the importance of dance to creating a new social network after the death of his wife.

 I’ve always liked the freedom of working for myself. I don’t like being constrained and tied down by a large corporation. I actually started my career as a salaryman [salaried employee]. I worked at Hitachi [an electronics company] but I left after just three years to open an electrical goods store. There was no stability being self-employed but that’s the way I liked it.

My wife and I had four children. There’s a saying “get your wife from the base of a tree (yome wa kijiri kara morae)”. This means get your wife from a poor family so that even in hard times, she won’t run away….  There’s another saying “don’t feed a fish you’ve already caught.” So once a man marries, he changes dramatically. He doesn’t turn toward his wife anymore; he doesn’t buy her clothes. While he’s romancing her, a man does a lot to get her to like him. But once they’re married, they don’t do anything…. I have felt a lot of regret about things I did and said to my wife. I think I was at fault for not being the kind of husband who would let her say what she really felt. I was usually the one who would put forth my opinion.

After my wife died, the house was quiet. I was lonely. I had a very bitter experience with her death, and I feel at some level that I failed. Surviving on my own after my wife died – cleaning, cooking, laundry – was so tough. It was so tough that I felt like maggots were growing inside my body. I just couldn’t do it.  It was about a year after my wife’s death that I decided to open the dance hall. Dance parties I attended when I was an employee at Hitachi inspired me to open my own small dance hall. I used to go to the parties. I liked the tango, rhumba, cha cha, and waltz.

I put posters up around the neighborhood and people came. Now about ten people come to my circle: three of them are men and seven are women whose ages range from 53 to 70. The men have partners – they come with their partners.  Most of the women who come are single. They’re divorcees or widows.  Widows say that now their husbands have died, they feel liberated and don’t want a new husband. I dance with all of the single women, one after another.

Eventually, the women who came to the dance hall offered to help him out with his laundry. 

You see, when there is a man who is single at this age like me, women want to help. If the man’s a creep, of course they won’t want to help him. But if he’s a good guy, like me, they want to help. It’s their instinctive maternal feeling. And what I’m doing is simply cleverly using this feeling. I’m really fortunate. [chuckles] Maybe this is a bit cunning of me.  In return I dance with them. Because there are a lot of women, I graciously dance with them. I get tired because I have to dance with about four of them.

I made this dance space to enjoy my retirement, not to earn money. But I do take a bit of money. I charge 1000 yen [approximately $10] for entry. So I guess it pays for my food expenses. If I am to live well until 90, I need to do something like dance. I want to be famous in my 90s as the notable elder who has his own dance studio and dances for health. I have this strong belief that one mustn’t let emotional stress pile up or one will get sick. I want to live happily, cheerfully.

In the process of meeting these women at the dance hall, Kubota-san became a counselor to them on how to interact with their retired husbands.

There are men who don’t have anything to do after retirement. They are really grumpy. My friend is married to a man like that, who after he retired, started picking at everything his wife did:  what she cooked, the way she ate her food, and even the way she brought the newspaper to him. All he did was stay at home. He had absolutely no hobbies. I told the woman that a couple, if they are to live harmoniously, must have one shared hobby. Whether it’s poetry (haiku) or hiking or dance or anything – they just have to have one hobby that they share. I also told her to stand up to her husband and not put up with any more of his nonsense. Let him criticize her.  She shouldn’t take any notice. Apparently things gradually got better after that because they joined a poetry circle together.

Speaking in English

The second informant is Yoshida-san, age 64. He retired from a manufacturing firm where he worked as a salaryman for nearly forty years. He lives with his wife, daughter, and two grandchildren in the city of Saitama. We originally met at a public citizens’ hall in Saitama where I was volunteering as an English conversation teacher and where Yoshida-san was taking social dance and English conversation classes. In contrast with the entrepreneurial electrician, Kubota-san, Yoshida-san decided to pursue leisure activities in a more structured format. He enrolled in classes where students met three times a month and followed a curriculum under the guidance of teachers. An interesting point to note is that each man’s choice of leisure community bears a resemblance to his respective career choice, as the self-employed entrepreneur or the lifelong salaryman. This was a pattern I noticed in the English conversation class at the citizens’ hall. All of the male students in the English conversation class were retirees of corporations. They seemed to prefer the highly structured learning environment to the more informal circles of sociality.

The day of our interview, Yoshida-san was dressed in a sports coat and slacks and a designer shirt. We met at a restaurant near the citizens’ hall after our English conversation class to discuss his career, marriage, and decision to enroll in classes at the citizens’ hall.

I worked for a manufacturing firm for my entire career. I entered the firm after I left high school. When I was working I’d come home late each night. I never ate at home. I was always out at nights entertaining my customers…. In my fifties I became the president of the firm.

My wife and I have been married for 39 years. I used to think maybe I should have dated many women before making a decision to marry her, but there is a saying in Japan ‘if things end well, all is well.’ We don’t step into each other’s territory. I have my life; my wife has hers.  I am grateful to my wife for cooking nutritious food. I tell her the reason I could come to this point is because of her.

When Yoshida-san first retired, he enjoyed the freedom of not having to leave his home. This was a dramatic shift to the frenetic life he had led as a salaryman.

I was savoring the feeling of not having to go anywhere. I felt satisfied that I had fulfilled my role as a man. I drank a lot of beer in front of the television.  But I began to feel restless and felt that it was not good to just stay at home. I wasn’t meeting enough people, especially women…. It was about a year after I retired that I decided to enroll in classes at the citizens’ hall. I visited the hall and saw posters for a social dance class and an English conversation class.  My only experience learning English was in middle and high school, and I’ve never been overseas. I thought it would be a good challenge for me to begin learning English again.

Yoshida-san’s ninety-year old father also encouraged him to study the language.

My father used to be a high school English teacher. He’s now in his 90s and is a volunteer interpreter for the local community… He is very active.  I decided that if I want to be like my father when I’m in my 90s, I had to do more in my retirement. Taking part in the classes at the hall is good. First of all, we get out of the house, and we make friends. Through those contacts, we get into a lot of circles. In those circles we have a lot of interactions with a lot of different types of people. We absorb a lot of different opinions on varied subjects. That’s my view on how we avoid developing diseases like Alzheimer’s. It follows in that order. If we’re at home all the time, and doing nothing and lying around watching television and not meeting anybody, we would age quickly.

Yoshida-san continued on to explain why he felt learning in a communal environment was crucial to sustaining health.

Mingling with fellow classmates, especially women, helps me retain my vitality… I chose this English class over another class because in the other one, all the students were men….The mixed-sex context makes me take care of my appearance. The days when I go to class, I always spend a half-hour selecting my clothes. [chuckles] I guess you noticed at the English conversation class how everyone comes dressed up. It’s because they want to appeal to the opposite sex. Even the married women care about this. They’d never say it, but I’m sure this is what they’re thinking. The granny, 73-year old Hoshino-san, comes to class looking for romance.

Human beings have two desires: food and sex. The second doesn’t disappear. I feel nervous before each class. It’s a positive kind of stress. Do you know the word kinchō?²⁹ When I get up in front of the students to give speeches, I feel a lot of good kinchō. I try my best to use new vocabulary words that Sensei taught us and also crack jokes in English to make everybody laugh. Without this type of stress, men age quickly. It’s the same with the dance class. Most of the students there are women and I feel kinchō dancing with different women.

Of course, the women and I only interact in the classroom. I never ask them out for tea, because I’m married and I’m not looking for romance. Besides, my wife would find out. But I find it very enjoyable to go out to restaurants twice a year with the women in a mixed-sex environment.

Conclusion

The lives of men featured in this article unfold against a backdrop of accelerating public health policy programs aimed at mitigating the strain that elderly citizens could place on the national systems of health insurance and long-term care insurance. The state urges senior citizens like Kubota-san and Yoshida-san to be proactive in maintaining their health in old age. It is illuminating to explore the individual men’s motivations to pursue active lives. Kubota-san’s aspiration to be known as the “notable elder who dances for health” at age 90 or Yoshida-san’s belief that senior citizens who remain in their homes without meeting people are “at risk of aging rapidly” resonate with national programs that aim to increase the healthy longevity of Japanese senior citizens.

These case studies do more, however, than show the dovetailing of government initiatives with individual action. They illuminate men’s perspectives on the vital role of heterosexual socializing in sustaining their health in old age. Kubota-san, for example, created the dance circle after his wife’s death to establish new relationships with women who became his dancing partners and would help to take care of some of his domestic needs. Yoshida-san took up English language classes in a mixed-sex environment because he felt strongly that social interactions with women in the classroom helped generate productive tension that was necessary to “retain his youth.” For these men and countless other Japanese retirees, these communal leisure environments have transcended their mission for preventive health care. Constructing masculine identity through these leisure activities is central to their perception of their own health and vitality.

Due to persistent low fertility, low immigration and mass longevity, Japan has one of the largest silver populations in the world. Scholars analyzing societies dealing with population aging have tended to focus on the pro-natalist policies of governments which seek to raise a nation’s birthrate. The Japanese case shows that attention must also be paid to the pursuit of healthy longevity practices. Promoting health through lifestyle changes has become a major tool in the effort to mitigate the burden of aging on the nation’s health and long-term care insurance systems. Through subsidies, discounts and public promotions, the state has been a keen advocate and active player in the promotion of communal leisure activities.

Changes in family structure and the subsequent rise in single-person households across Japan have also added to the social interest in communities of leisurely socializing as an antidote for social isolation. Undergirding the provision of these services has been a broader shift in Japanese approaches to the elderly. Under the banner of “self-sufficiency,” various reforms have been introduced that increasingly place the onus on older citizens to proactively monitor the incidence of disease and debility that could place them at risk for requiring care in an institutional setting. In the same vein, the value of communal leisure activities for the elderly has been shifted from being a source of enrichment to senior citizens in their old age to being a key medium for preserving mobility and self-sufficiency in old age. 

Japan is at the forefront of public health policy choices aimed at extending healthy human life spans. Tracking the impact of current and immanent policy changes down to the individual cases will be valuable not only for Japan, but for other nations facing challenges of aging populations.

Endnotes

1.             International Longevity Center, “Reforms of the Health Care System in Japan: The Aims of the June 2006 Partial Amendments to the Health Insurance Act,” from Japan Now 2006, p. 1.

2.             This represents a 12.5% increase in participation over the past ten years. See Prime Minister’s Office, “Kōrei Shakai Hakusho” (White Paper on Aging.) Tokyo: Government Publishing Bureau, 2007, p. 51.

3.             The vignettes are drawn from ethnographic interviews the author conducted in Japan in 2004.

4.             For studies of pro-natalist policies in societies dealing with population aging, see Elizabeth Krause, A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy, 2004 and Heather Paxson, Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece, 2004.

5.             OECD Health Data, 2006.

6.             The Japanese health care system is funded through a combination of taxes and the national health insurance system.

7.             John Creighton Campbell, “Population Aging: Hardly Japan’s Biggest Problem,” in The Demographic Dilemma: Japan’s Aging Society, 2003, p.11. 

8.             International Longevity Center, op cit, 2006: 2.

9.             For example, until 2006, the cost of meals in a long-term care institution for an elderly patient was 24,000 yen (approximately $240). Since 2006, the cost increased by 75% to 42,000 yen ($420). International Longevity Center, op cit, p..3.

10.           Koichiro Yamauchi, “Aging in Japan. National Policies, Regional Issues, and Local Government Measures,” From Japan Now, 2006, p. 3.

11.           Masako Osako, “International News: Japan,” ILC Policy Report: Longevity News and Trends in the U.S. and Abroad, 2008, p. 3. See also Shigeo Morioka, “Challenges of Productive Aging in Japan.” In M. Robinson, C. Pearson, and L. Norris, eds., Global Health and Global Aging, AARP Foundation, 2007.

12.           Out-migration of young people from rural areas to urban centers for education and work has led to an increase in the number of rural households where there is no co-resident son and daughter-in-law to provide support. For analyses of the challenges of aging in rural Japan, see John W. Traphagan and John Knight, eds. Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society,  Albany: State University of New York, _ 2003.

13.           National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. Population Statistics of Japan. 2006. p. 89.

14.           Shigeko Koike, “Kōreika Shakai to Shōgai Gakushū.” (Aging Society and Lifelong Learning) in H. Sasaki and Ogawa ed, Shōgai Gakushū o Torimaku Shakai Kankyō (Social Issues Surrounding Lifelong Learning). Tokyo: Gakubunsha, 2003.

15.           Ueno, Chizuko, “Ohitorisama no Rōgo.” (Old Age for the Single Elder) Tokyo: Hōken, 2007.

16.           Interview with Yoichi Nakamura, Saitama City Office, Lifelong Learning Promotion Division, August 2005.

17.           Shinagawa City. “Kenkō zukuri (Kenkō suishin; Shōgai Gakushū): Shinagawa Deai no Yu” (Creating Health (Promoting Health through Lifelong Learning): Shinagawa’s Bath of Encounter) www.city.shinagawa.tokyo.jp/hp/menu000002200/hpg000002166.htm.  Accessed January 28, 2008>.

18.           For a discussion of Japanese state interest in promoting leisure and recreation activities , see David Leheny’s The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003.

19.           Yutaka Shiraishi, Alternative Approaches to Financing Lifelong Learning. Geneva: OECD, 1998.

20.           Of Shinagawa’s population of 342,700, 20% is over the age of 65. See http://www.city.shinagawa.tokyo.jp/toukei2/jinkou.html#002 <accessed January 28, 2008.

21.           John Creighton Campbell, How Policies Change: The Japanese Government and the Aging Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

22.           Campbell, op cit, 1992:9.

23.           Okumoto Kaoru, Nyūmon: Shogai Gakushū Seisaku (Lifelong Learning Policy: An Introduction). Tokyo, Zen Nihon Shakai Kyōiku Rengō Kai, 2004.

24.           Interview with Shinji Kondo, editor of Shakai Kyōiku [Social Education]. Tokyo. June 2005.

25.           Masa Sai, “Tsuma ga taorete. Otoko no ‘Jiritsu’ Kō (After a Wife’s Fall: An Opportunity for Men’s Self-Sufficiency?”). Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA 8 December 8, 2003.

26.           For an analysis of women’s membership in communities of learning, see Katrina Moore, Mobilizing through Leisure: Gender, Aging, and Embodiment in Urban Japan (forthcoming).

27.           See Nishida, Sayoko Teinen Hyōryū. (Drifting Retiree) Saitama: Saitama Shinbunsha, 2003.

28.           With the exception of government officials and other public figures whose names and behavior are a matter of public record, the names and identifying details of all of my informants have been changed. This is meant to ensure confidentiality and protect the anonymity of individuals, families, and institutions involved. Where necessary, certain other identifiable details of these individuals have been slightly altered to better protect their identities.  All Japanese names are written according to Japanese practice, surname first, except where the person publishes in English, in which case the given name appears first. All translations from Japanese to English are mine unless otherwise indicated.

29.           Kinchō denotes a state of preparing oneself and remaining alert in anticipation of action.