Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket: Trends in
Working Hours and Time Spent Caring for Elderly Family Members
Sachiko Kuroda
Waseda University
In Japan’s super-aging society, there is growing concern due to the fact thatthe number of intermediate age workers who need to take care of elderly family members has increased rapidly in the last few decades. However, there islimited research investigating the time use of those workers who are giving
care to elderly family members. Using Japanese time-use data, this paper investigates how the time use of intermediate age caregivers has evolved in thelast few decades. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, according to ourestimation, the number of caregivers has increased from 3.56 million people in1991 to 6.83 million people in 2011. Secondly, contrary to the growing number of caregivers, the time used for giving care has decreased tremendously
since 2001. On the other hand, working hours have increased during the same
period. Thirdly, using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we tried to investigate
the reason for the decrease in time spent giving care to elderly family members.
Although the decline in time spent giving care is partially explained by the
implementation of the Long-Term Care Insurance Act in 2000, for the mostpart it remains unexplained.

I.

Introduction

Japan is currently encountering a new era as a super-aging society, with over 25% of
its total population—in other words, at least one in four people—aged 65 years or older in2015. In the face of such population aging, Japan is seeking to promote a “society of dynamic engagement of all citizens” (Ichioku sokatsuyaku shakai), a society in which anyone
with the ability to work has the opportunity to engage in employment, as a means of curbing
the decrease in the labor force as far as possible and sustaining the potential for growth. Inorder to support this, it urgently needs to be ensured that workers who also bear family responsibilities such as caring for elderly family members or raising children are not drawn
into the culture of focusing solely on work which has traditionally been prominent in Japanese society, but are able to consider a greater range of options for flexible and diverse ways
of working that allow them to balance their work with their private time. This is particularly
true in the case of members of the intermediate age bracket (defined here as age 30‒59), as
they occupy important roles within their places of work as key players who form the core ofMicrodata from the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities was provided by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The author would like to express sincere
gratitude to the Statistics Bureau for permitting the use of the data. The author is solely responsible forany errors in this paper. This research (“Economic Analysis of Time Use and Health”; Project number:
25380372) was supported by an FY2015 Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) from the Ministryof Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

55

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

the labor force and managers who are responsible for supervising and training their teammembers and younger colleagues, while also often tackling a number of responsibilities intheir private lives, such as raising children or caring for elderly family members, as a resultof increasing trends of later marriage, later childbirth, and population aging.
In Japan, the term “work-life balance” was initially often used specifically to refer tosupport for working women raising children. However, in recent years the increasing number of both women and men who face conflict between work and care giving for elderlyfamily members has come to be recognized as a social problem, as progressive population
aging has led to an increase in the number of people who struggle to balance caring for family members with work commitments. For example, the 2012 Employment Status Survey(Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) reveals that as manyas 100,000 people each year have to quit their jobs in order to care family members, andthere is significant concern regarding the potential rise in the number of such people in the
future.
However, as far as the author is aware there is insufficient research using statistical
data to ascertain how people facing such work-life conflict actually approach work and daily life. While the numbers of people caring for family members are known, there is only
highly limited information available on how much these numbers have increased in comparison with previous years, how much time is required for giving care, and whether suchcaregiving time has increased over time along with population aging.1 Research urgently
needs to be conducted using statistical data to carefully ascertain the actual circumstancesand elucidate what kinds of needs and issues exist, in order to establish the structure that isrequired to ensure that everyone is able to support the super-aging society. With these challenges in mind, this paper aims to provide basic information on how people in the intermediate age bracket who have responsibilities such as caring for elderly family members andraising children divide their time between work and other daily activities.
In the main body of this paper, Section II will look at the changes regarding people
caring for family members over time, including the extent of the increase in the number ofpeople who care for family members and changes in the percentages of people within theintermediate age bracket who care for family members over the past two decades. Section
III then ascertains the changes over recent decades in how workers—particularly those inregular employment—in the intermediate age bracket divide time between working andother daily activities. Section IV observes the changes in the time that regular employees
spend giving care to family members and how this relates to working hours.

1

Sugiura and Arayama (2013a, 2013b, 2013c) are good examples of prior research that uses aggregate data to carefully observe the relationship between caregivers and their work. Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare (2013) is also a valuable study that uses data from commissioned surveys
and other sources to provide insights on topics such as the problems of balancing caregiving withwork, and information regarding people leaving work to provide care.

56

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

II. Trends regarding People Caring for Family Members
1. Changes in the Number of People Caring for Family Members
The Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA), conducted by the Statistics
Bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, provides official statistics that allow us to determine the approximate number of people who give care to family
members (hereafter “caregivers”) in Japan over an extended chronological period. Conducted every five years, it is a major survey under which data is collected from around
200,000 respondents on the way in which they use their time over a single day and theireveryday lives in general. This paper uses microdata from the STULA to determine information on the numbers of and trends among caregivers in Japan.
Firstly, let us look at how the number of caregivers has increased over the last twenty
years along with the progress of population aging. Since 1991, the STULA has included thequestion “Do you usually care for a member of your family?” for respondents aged 15 andover.2 In the STULA, “caring” is defined as “helping in daily activities such as bathing,
dressing, going to the toilet, moving around the house, or taking a meal.” This definition of“caring” also covers care that is given to people who have not been officially certified as“requiring long-term care” under the Long-Term Care Insurance system (but does not include care given to those who are confined to bed with a temporary illness). It also includes
not only care given to family members in the same home, but also care provided to family
members who live away from the caregiver. Figure 1 shows the changes in the estimatednumber of caregivers, calculated using sampling weights for data tabulation attached toeach sample of the STULA, and the percentage that caregivers account for within the population aged 15 and over.3
Figure 1 shows that in Japan the number of people who care for family members has
surged in the last two decades, from 3.57 million people in 1991, to 4.76 million people in2001, and 6.83 million in 2011. The percentage that caregivers account for within the population aged 15 and over has also risen from 3.56% in 1991, to 4.46% in 2001, and 6.31% in2011.
Figure 2 shows how the distribution of the ages of the caregivers has shifted as their
number has risen sharply over the last twenty years. The figure demonstrates that while in1991 caregivers under 60 years of age accounted for around 75% of all caregivers, this percentage dropped to around 55% by 2011. On the other hand, the percentage of caregivers
2“Usually caring for a member of your family” is defined as “providing care for 30 days or more
per year.”
3
The STULA is a major survey of around 200,000 household members aged 10 and above, forwhich respondents complete a two-day record of their daily living pattern. The estimated population
can be calculated using these samples and the multiplying factors for data tabulation. More specifically, the estimated population is the sum of the sampling weights attached to each sample, divided byseven, the number of days in a week. Genda (2013) provides a detailed account of the methods ofcalculating the estimated population.

57

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

Sources: Microdata from the 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 editions of
the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications).
Note: “Caregiver” is defined as those who responded that they “usuallycare for a member of family.” The same applies to all figures and tables hereinafter.

Figure 1. Changes in the Number and Percentage of Caregivers since 1990

Sources: Microdata from the 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 editions of
the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications).

Figure 2. Changes in the Percentage of Caregivers by Age Bracket
58

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

Table 1. The Percentage of Caregivers in the Population by Age Bracket

Sources: Microdata from the 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 editions of the Survey on TimeUse and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications).

in the 60 years or older age bracket has increased. The fact that almost half of all caregivers
are aged 60 or older clearly shows that Japan is now in an age in which the elderly are caring for the elderly. As a result, the percentage that the intermediate age bracket (age 30‒59)
accounts for within the total number of caregivers has been on the decrease, dropping from
60% in 1991 to around 50% in 2011.
At the same time, while the number of caregivers aged 60 or older is steadily increasing, caregivers in the age group that forms the core of the labor force—namely, theintermediate age bracket—still account for around half of the approximately 6.83 million
caregivers in Japan. In 2011 the number of caregivers in the intermediate age bracket wasaround 3.4 million people, almost the same as the total number of caregivers in 1991.

2. Trends within the Intermediate Age Bracket
The following sections of this paper focus on the intermediate age bracket and thetrends regarding caregiving among this age bracket. Firstly, Table 1 shows the percentage of
caregivers among the 30‒39, 40‒49, and 50‒59 age brackets respectively.
Table 1 shows that in the 30‒39 age bracket the percentage of caregivers has shown
slight fluctuations but essentially remained level over the last twenty years, for both males
and females. On the other hand, in the 40‒49 age bracket the percentage of caregivers has
risen gradually. The 50‒59 age bracket shows the most marked increase, with the percentage for males rising from 3.04% in 1991 to 9.07% in 2011, and the percentage for females
rising from 7.17% in 1991 to 16.12% in 2011. Japan has now reached an age in which one
in every ten males aged 50‒59 and one in every six females aged 50‒59 are caring for family members.
Figure 3 shows the shifts in the percentages of caregivers within the number of people
in regular employment, by age bracket and sex. In this figure, changes are given for the period between 1996 and 2011, because the question on employment status that provides information on whether or not respondents are in regular employment was first included in
59

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

Sources: Microdata from the 1996 and 2011 editions of the Survey on TimeUse and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs
and Communications).

Figure 3. Changes in the Percentage of Caregivers among Regular Employees by
Age Bracket
the STULA in 1996. As in surveys such as the Labour Force Survey (Statistics Bureau,
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications), the STULA classifies a respondent as a“regular employee” (seishain) if their type of employment is referred to as such by theirplace of employment.
Figure 3 shows that in 2011 the percentages of people caring for family members
while in regular employment had reached around 4% for males in the 40‒49 age bracket,
over 8% for males in the 50‒59 age bracket, 5% for females in the 40‒49 age bracket, andover 14% for females in the 50‒59 age bracket. This reveals notable increases over the last
15 years in the percentages of people giving care while in regular employment, as since1996 they have risen from 3% for males in the 40‒49 age bracket, 5% for males in the
50‒59 age bracket, just under 4% for females in the 40‒49 age bracket and 7% for females
in the 50‒59 age bracket. It is also interesting to note that the percentages of caregivers
among employed people overall (namely, both regular and non-regular workers) are roughly
the same as those for regular employees; in 2011, around 9% of employed males in the
50‒59 age bracket, and around 14% of employed females in the 50‒59 age bracket werecaring for family members.

III. Time Use among the Intermediate Age Bracket
While the existence of people in the intermediate-age bracket facing such work-life
conflicts is recognized by society, the actual conditions of their lives have not been eluci-

60

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

dated using statistics. Taking into consideration the fact that in recent years a growing
number of people have weekly days off on days other than Saturday and Sunday, the responses to the STULA question asking respondents to select the type of day for which they
were completing the record of their time-use (“response day”) were used to focus on respondents’ time use on working days. Here, the types of response day were divided into
three categories: (i) Day off or vacation, etc., (ii) Special day (A combination of the options“Travel or excursion,” “Event, wedding, or funeral,” “Business trip or training,” “Work at
home,” “Medical treatment,” “Childcare leave, etc.,” “Nursing care leave, etc.” in the
STULA question), (iii) Ordinary day (“Other” in the STULA question). Analysis was thenfocused on the changes in time use on days in the third category, “ordinary days.” For aregular employee, an “ordinary day” would be a day on which they engaged in work as
normal—namely not a day off or a day on which they had special plans or commitments.
Figure 4 divides male and female regular employees in the 30‒59 age bracket whose
response day was an “ordinary day” into three groups—those “with caregiving commitments,” those “with childcare commitments,” and those “with neither”—and demonstrates
how the time spent on daily activities has changed over the 15 years between 1996 and 2011.
As mentioned above, the STULA is a survey to investigate how people use their time overthe course of each day; for each 15 minute block on the record of time use respondents fillin the activity they engaged in from a list of twenty options, such as “work” or “sleep.” Figure 4 demonstrates changes in the use of time, with the activities for which time is useddivided into four categories. Firstly, “sleep, meals, and personal care, etc.” is the sum of thetime spent sleeping, eating meals, and on one’s daily personal care, such as taking a bath.
While the time spent on these three activities is not time spent being directly productive, it
is an intermediate input that is essential for productivity. Secondly, the category “working
and commuting” includes both working hours and time spent commuting as here both aretreated as time spent working. The third category, “household production,” is the sum oftime spent on housework, childcare, caring or nursing, and shopping, and the fourth category, “leisure (defined),” is the sum of time spent on “watching television/listening to the radio, etc.,” “social life,” “rest and relaxation,” “sports,” “hobbies and amusements,” “learning and self-education, etc.” and “volunteer activities, etc.” The STULA also includes options for time spent “traveling (excluding commuting),” receiving “medical examinations ortreatment” (by the respondent themselves), and any “other activities” not covered underthose given above, but these are excluded from Figure 4.
Figure 4 (1) shows that although for a number of years importance has been placed on
work-life balance and support for coping with nursing or childcare alongside work, theworking hours of people in the intermediate age bracket have in fact tended to become
longer over the last 15 years. Looking at the changes over the last fifteen years, particularly
people caring for family members have seen the greatest increase in the time spent “working and commuting.” The time that has been decreased as a result of this increase in working hours is the time spent on “sleep, meals, and personal care, etc.,” and the time allocated61Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

Sources: Microdata from the 1996 and 2011 editions of the Survey on Time Useand Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs andCommunications).
Note: “Household production” is the sum of time spent on housework, childcare,
caring or nursing, and shopping. “Leisure (in a defined sense)” is the sum oftime spent “watching television/listening to the radio, etc.,” “social life,”“rest and relaxation,” “sports,” “hobbies and amusements,” “learning andself-education, etc.” and “volunteer activities, etc.”

Figure 4. Changes in Time Use over an Ordinary Day (Between 1996 and 2011)62

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

to “leisure (defined).” There is little change in the time spent on “household production,”
although with slight increases among the group of those “with childcare commitments” andthe group of those “with neither” caregiving nor childcare commitments.
Looking at the trends for female regular employees in Figure 4 (2), as in the case ofmales, those caring for family have seen the greatest increase in “working and commuting”
time. The fact that “household production” time has decreased across all female age brackets differs from the trend demonstrated among males. However, as the decrease in “household production” time does not cancel out the increase in “working and commuting” time,
the time spent on “sleep, meals, and personal care, etc.,” and the “leisure (defined)” time
has decreased across almost all groups. This demonstrates that over the past 15 years theordinary day has become busier for both female and male regular employees.
To summarize the above, for both males and females there has been an increase inworking hours on ordinary days, and in the past 15 years this increase has been particularly
great for those who are caring for family members. As a result, the difference in working
hours between those who care for family and those who do not have such responsibilities ison the decrease. Both males and females are supplementing the extra time needed forworking hours on ordinary days by reducing their leisure time, sleep, and other such activities. Furthermore, among women the significant decrease in household production time isalso contributing to the increase in working hours.

IV. Caring for Family Members and Work: The Decrease in Caregiving TimeIn Section III, we observed that on the whole the number of working hours on ordinary days is increasing for both the group with family responsibilities such as caring for
elderly family members and raising children, and the group with no such responsibilities.
This suggests a reverse in the trend of promoting work-life balance. However, given that theimplementation of the Long-Term Care Insurance system in 2000 has allowed Japan to develop a system by which society as a whole supports the care of older people, the fact thatfamilies have assistance with providing care may also be a factor behind this change in timeuse. Using this hypothesis as a basis, this section focusses in particular on regular employees in the intermediate age bracket who are caring for family members, and looks at how
the time that such people spend giving care (“caregiving time”) has changed since 2001, theyear after the Long-Term Care Insurance system came into effect.
Table 2 uses data for regular employees in the intermediate age bracket who responded that they were giving care to family members, and shows the changes in the average time spent giving care between 2001, 2006, and 2011. The rows marked “total” show
the samples for males or females overall, and the “at home” and “outside home” rows beneath demonstrate the changes in the caregiving time for the sample of those who care forfamily members “at home,” and the sample of those who provide care to family members

63

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

Table 2. Changes in the Average Caregiving Time per Week of Regular Employees(Age 30‒59) Caring for Family Members

Note: “At home” and “outside home” figures are the sample that provides care to family “athome,” and the sample that provides care to family “outside home” respectively. The “withassistance” and “without assistance” items are samples of those who answered “yes” andthose that answered “no” respectively in response to the question “Does anyone other thanyour household members usually give your family nursing care?” Figures in parentheses are
standard errors. +,* and ** indicate that the difference between the two given years has statistical significance at the 10, 5, and 1% levels respectively.

“outside home.”4 Below that, the “with assistance” and “without assistance” items show the
caregiving times when respondents are divided into the sample of those who answered“yes” and the sample of those that answered “no” in response to the question “Does anyone
other than your household members usually give your family nursing care?”. “Nursing careby someone other than your household members” is defined as “care provided by a relative
who is not living with you or by a care service provider (for instance, a home care attendantor day care service),” and nursing care includes “care given to people who have not been
4
The 2011 survey includes questions that divide the nursing care provided outside home into “inthe same site as the caregiver’s residence, or, in the neighborhood” and “other,” but in Table 2 these
two groups are combined as the “outside home” sample, in order to make it possible to look at thechange chronologically.

64

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

officially certified as ‘requiring long-term care’ under the Long-Term Care Insurance system.”
The “2001,” “2006,” and “2011” columns in Table 2 show the average weekly caregiving time as it was recorded in the survey conducted in each of the years. Firstly, looking
at the changes across the totals for males and females, the time spent providing care wasaround two to three hours per week on average in 2001, and this time has decreased over thelast ten years. In the center of the table are the results of a significance test of the differences
between 2001 and 2006, and 2001 and 2011. The results demonstrate that the decreases in
caregiving time between 2001 and 2011 for both females and males are statistically significant.
Let us look at whether or not such a decrease in caregiving time is related to the factthat with the increasing trend toward nuclear families, there has been an increase in the percentages of people who give care outside home and people who place their relatives in a
special nursing home for the aged. Of the regular employees in the intermediate age bracket
caring for family members in 2001, 477,000 people (males and females) were giving care athome, and 409,000 were giving care outside home—in other words, more people were giving care “at home” than “outside home” in 2001. This has reversed in the last ten years, andthe figures for 2011 demonstrate that the number of people giving care to family members
outside home has shown a greater increase, with 561,000 people caring for family members
at home and 583,000 people caring for family members outside home. Looking at thechange in caregiving time by samples for at home and outside home, caregiving time has
decreased over the past decade for both males and females, regardless of whether the care isprovided at or outside the caregiver’s home.
Let us now look at whether the fact that the implementation of the Long-Term Care
Insurance system has increased the number of people who are able to receive assistancefrom others in giving care is contributing to the decrease in the per capita time spent
providing care. Of the regular employees in the intermediate age bracket who are providing
nursing care, the percentage of males who responded that they receive some form of assistance from someone outside the household actually decreased from 28.5% in 2001 to 26.4%
in 2011. However, there is a difference in the trends for males and females, as in the case of
females the percentage of people receiving assistance increased from 25.6% in 2001 to
32.8% in 2011. Potential factors to explain the increase in the percentage of females receiving assistance are a possible increase in the number of males who engage in providing care,a possible increase in the number of people who share the responsibility of providing carewith relatives living in another location, and a possible increase in the number of peopleusing Long-Term Care Insurance. Looking at the changes in caregiving time according towhether or not respondents do or do not receive such assistance, in the case of males timespent providing care is decreasing regardless of whether or not there is assistance, while inthe case of females the time spent providing care is in fact decreasing for the group that
does not receive assistance. These observations seem to suggest that the decrease in care65

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016giving time is not necessarily entirely due to the impact of the Long-Term Care Insurance
system. Incidentally, while the analysis in this paper is focused on people in the intermediate age bracket who are in regular employment, analysis of the data for people not in employment and in other age brackets reveals that caregiving time is decreasing across all age
brackets on the whole, regardless of whether respondents are employed or unemployed, andregardless of their employment type or age bracket.
Moreover, it is also important to note the fact that even now, a decade since theLong-Term Care Insurance system came into effect, around 70% of both males and females
are giving care to family members without receiving assistance from others. This may be
due to the fact that the person they are looking after has not been officially certified as requiring long-term care services, but needs some form of help in their daily life (such as being taken to the hospital for outpatient treatment, or general housework such as putting out
the trash, cleaning, laundry, and shopping), or that although the person they are looking after would be eligible for long-term care services, the caregiver is providing care alone due
to a lack of knowledge or information. It will also be necessary to pursue initiatives andincorporate the use of other statistics in order to ascertain more information on such people
giving care without assistance.
As established early on in this paper, Japan has seen a rapid increase in the number ofpeople caring for family members, but at the same time, as demonstrated in Table 2, thetime that such caregivers spend giving care has decreased over the last ten years, regardlessof where they give the care or whether or not they receive assistance from others. In order tolook a little deeper into the factors behind the decrease in caregiving time, Table 3 and 4 use
the samples from 2001 and 2011, and show the results of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of
the factors for change in caregiving time, by sex. The following explanatory variables wereused: age dummy (base = 30‒39 age bracket), marital status dummy, interaction term of themarital status dummy and the both partners working dummy, educational level dummy, withchild under six years dummy, hospitalization dummy (1 in the case that a member of thehousehold is hospitalized), at home care dummy (1 in the case that care is provided athome), annual household income (the value in real terms calculated by dividing the medianof the values for each income level group by the consumer price index [national average]),assistance with providing care from someone outside of the household dummy (1 in the casethat assistance is received), and the interaction term of the assistance with providing caredummy and the frequency of assistance (one day a month, two-three days a month, one day
a week, two-three days a week, four or more days a week).
Moreover, the time required for care is dependent on the degree to which care is required, but as it is not possible to ascertain this from the STULA, Table 3 and 4 also include
as additional variables the percentage of persons officially certified under the Long-TermCare Insurance system as “requiring long-term care” (yo-kaigo) among the 65‒74 year old
and the 75 years and above population, and the percentage of those certified as “requiringsupport” (yo-shien; namely, people for whom the degree of care required is relatively low)66

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

Table 3. Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition (Average Caregiving Time per Week of Male
Regular Employees [Age 30‒59] Caring for Family Members)

Note: Figures in parentheses are standard errors. +,* and ** indicate that the difference between thetwo given years has statistical significance at the 10, 5, and 1% levels respectively.

67

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

Table 4. Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition (Average Caregiving Time per Week ofFemale Regular Employees [Age 30‒59] Caring for Family Members)

Note: Figures in parentheses are standard errors. +,* and ** indicate that the difference between thetwo given years has statistical significance at the 10, 5, and 1% levels respectively.

68

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

among those age 65‒74 and 75 and above requiring long-term care, based on data from the
Status Report on the Long-Term Care Insurance System (Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare) for 2001 and 2011 by prefecture of residence. The former demonstrates the increase or decrease in the percentage accounted for among older people by those requiringlong-term care, and the latter demonstrates the change in the level of the care required bythose eligible for care. Looking at the national average, in the last ten years the percentageof people designated as requiring long-term care has increased in both the 65‒74 age bracket and the 75 or above age bracket. However, of those people designated as requiringlong-term care, the percentage of people designated as requiring support has also increased.
Namely, the decade is characterized by the fact while the percentage of people requiring
care is on the increase, there is also an increase in the number of people requiring a low
level of care.
In order to look at to what extent caregiving time is affected by increase and decreasein other time, “work” time and “household production time”—“housework,” “traveling(other than commuting),” “shopping,” and “childcare” time—were added to the explanatory
variables. The inclusion of “travel” as a variable takes into account the fact that there is anincrease in the number of people providing care outside of the home, and therefore there is apossibility that such caregivers may require time to travel to and from the place of residenceof the person requiring care, subsequently decreasing the time that can be spent on providing care. Moreover, “shopping” and “housework” time were adopted as explanatory valuables because, as mentioned above, caregivers may be using time to provide support withdaily living such as housework and shopping where the person has a relatively less severe
condition not designated as requiring long-term care. The inclusion of childcare time takes
into account the increase in the number of people who care for elderly family members
while also raising children.5, 6Firstly, looking at the “explained” column for males in Table 3 (second column fromthe right), the decrease in the percentage of people providing care at home, the increase in
the percentage of the 65‒74 age bracket certified as requiring long-term care, and the increase in the percentage of people certified as “requiring support” among the people in the
65‒74 age bracket certified as requiring care, each contribute to the increase in the caregiving time. On the other hand, the increase in the percentage certified as “requiring support”
among the people aged 75 and over requiring long-term care is contributing to the decreasein the caregiving time. Namely, the increase in the number of older people in the age 75 and5As time use is decided endogenously, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that it is
not demonstrating a causal link from one or the other, but when the variables regarding these times
were excluded the results were hardly affected.
6
The slight difference in the average values of caregiving time in Table 2 and the average valuesof caregiving time in Tables 3 and 4 is due to the difference in the number of samples. The number ofsamples used for the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition was slightly smaller than those used in Table 2,due to the fact for some of the samples there were no responses for items adopted as explanatory variables, such as education and income.

69

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

above age bracket who require some form of care but at a relatively low level is contributing to the decrease in caregiving time. Another factor that is contributing to the decreasein caregiving time is the increase in “work” time over the last ten years. It is not possible todetermine here whether this is because people are able to finish providing care in a shortamount of time and increase their work hours as a result, or because they have increased
their working hours and therefore have to decrease the time they spend providing care.
However, at the very least it can be suggested that the relationship between work time andcaregiving time is such that as one increases the other will decrease and vice versa.
Looking at the columns of regression coefficients in the center of Table 3, the “shopping time” in 2011 is estimated with a positive sign. This seems to indicate that there arepeople who provide support by buying and delivering necessary daily items, food, and otheritems when providing home-visit care to family members outside home. Moreover, thesample for 2011 shows that when there is assistance from someone other than a household
member the caregiving time becomes significantly lower. As “someone other than a household member” may include family and relatives who live in another household it is necessary to leave latitude in interpreting the results, but it is possible to make the interpretationthat since the introduction of Long-Term Care Insurance system for supporting older people
has come to function within society. However, as the percentage of such people who receive
assistance from someone other than a member of the household has changed very little incomparison with 2001, it is not possible to explain entirely the decrease in caregiving timeover the last decade.
Looking at the data for females in Table 4, the percentage that receive assistance with
providing nursing care from persons outside the household has increased over the last ten
years, in turn contributing to the decrease in the caregiving time. There was formerly astrong tendency for women to be responsible for providing nursing care, regardless ofwhether or not they were in employment, but it can be suggested that with the introductionof Long-Term Care Insurance this trend has eased slightly. At the same time, even when
there is assistance from someone outside the household, the caregiving time in fact increases along with increase in the frequency that support is provided. This seems to indicate that,as the higher the frequency that support is provided the higher the level of care needed by
the person requiring care becomes, it is necessary for the caregiver to also increase the timethey spend providing care, even when they receive assistance from others. The data for females also shows that an increase in actual yearly income of a household contributes to adecrease in caregiving time. As with an increase in income it is possible to outsource someof the care, it is possible that the increase in actual income is contributing to the overall decrease in caregiving time.
As described above, while there were certain factors that could be explained, it is notpossible to sufficiently explain the substantial decrease in caregiving time overall over thelast ten years. Further analysis is required in order to determine the reason for the decreasein caregiving time in recent years, as it will provide significant insights for reviewing the70

Work-Life Conflict in the Intermediate Age Bracket

Long-Term Care Insurance system in order to ensure that the system focusses on providing
support to those who really need assistance.

V. Conclusion
In summary, the results of analysis of the STULA showed a sharp increase in thenumber of people providing care to family members among the total number of people in
the intermediate age bracket who are in regular employment, but also a decrease over thelast ten years in the time that caregivers spend providing care, regardless of where they givethe care and whether or not they receive assistance from others. On the other hand, working
hours on ordinary working days are on the increase for both males and females, and thescale of this increase over the last 15 years is particularly significant among those who areproviding care to family members. In other words, although the importance of work-lifebalance and combining nursing care and childcare effectively with work has been emphasized for a number of years, the working hours of both males and females in the intermediate age bracket are in fact on the increase.
While in some cases it is possible to suggest that the decrease in caregiving time is a
result of the fact that social support for caregiving has developed with the introduction ofLong-Term Care Insurance, there is insufficient explanation for the significant decrease in
caregiving time over the last ten years. It is necessary to conduct further analysis in order toascertain the reason for the decrease in caregiving time in recent years, as it will be important for reviewing the Long-Term Care Insurance system in order to ensure that it focusses on providing support to those who really require assistance.

References
Genda, Yuji. 2013. Koritsu mugyo (SNEP) [Solitary non-employed persons (SNEPs)]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbun Shuppansha.
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. 2013. Heisei 24-nen ban, hataraku josei no jitsujo[The situation of working women 2012]. http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/koyoukintou/
josei-jitsujo/12.html (accessed November 24, 2015).
Sugiyama, Tachiaki, and Hiroyuki Arayama. 2013a. Hatarakinagara kaigosuru hito otorimaku kankyo: Rodo tokei ni miru dansei no hatarakikakta, josei no hatarakikata(29) [The circumstances surrounding people who provide care while working: The
way of working of males and females based on labor statistics (29)]. Sanseiken Forum,
no. 98:33‒40.
———. 2013b. Kazoku o kaigosuru hito no kazu to wariai oyobi heikin kaigo jikan: Rodotokei ni miru dansei no hatarakikakta, josei no hatarakikata (30) [The number, percentage, and average nursing time of people who care for family members: The wayof working of males and females based on labor statistics (30)]. Sanseiken Forum, no.
71

Japan Labor Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Winter 2016

99:24‒31.
———. 2013c. Kaigosha to hikaigosha no shigoto to kaji no jikan: Rodo tokei ni miru
dansei no hatarakikakta, josei no hatarakikata (31) [The time spent on work andhousework by caregivers and non-caregivers: The way of working of males and females based on labor statistics (31)]. Sanseiken Forum, no. 100: 29‒36.

72