Abandoning Old People

This is not about a Japanese old fable, in which a man brings his old disabled mother to the mountain and leaves her there. Japan Policy Council, a private organization proposing long-term policy for the future, suggested relocating the old people in Tokyo metropolitan zone to local cities. That was because the council predicted shortage of welfare facilities in Tokyo and necessity of local community to support it. That may be a challenge against a human right to live in wherever a person likes.

The council calculated that there would be one hundred thirty thousands of shortage in sleeping beds in nursery facilities in prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama in 2025. Until then, number of aged people older than seventy-five in greater Tokyo will be steeply increased by as much as 1.75 million. “Although Tokyo looks to be a place for the winners, it has great risks. Relocation to local cities should be considered. It is important to suggest the cities with medical and nursery supports for moving in younger ages,” told Hiroya Masuda, the chairman of the council.

The council picked forty-one cities all around Japan, which were the candidates for new place to live. Those cities will be able to accept aged people with medical support for acute illness and nursery. For smooth relocation, the council suggested subsidy from national government and new policy system for a trial move. However, some of the forty-one local cities were included in jeopardy of elimination in a report the council submitted last year. It is doubtful that a disappearing city can accept so many people from urban area.

The council members include former highly ranked bureaucrats, professors in universities in Tokyo or business leaders. Their policy recommendations tend to be based on viewpoints of the people in Tokyo. Relocating aged people from Tokyo to local community would create new separation between the winners and losers in urban community. No one among the member declared that he or she would move to a local city in the future. Moreover, the recommendation is actually an idea of removing social burden from the capital and posing new problem to local communities.

Japanese old fable goes like this: the son brought his mother back to his house after acknowledging her love to him when she dropped small twigs on the road for her son not to lose the way home, or the country abolished the policy of abandoning aged people after the country was saved from external aggression by wisdom of old people who secretly returned back from the mountain. There will be no happy-end in a story that ignores the old people.