ABSTRACT
Misao Kawauchi is one of the growing number of senior citizens who are living alone. She is healthy and in the absence of grandchildren does not feel old, that is, like a grandmother. Yet she is beginning to realize that, in spite of her vitality, as a single person she faces certain risks as she grows older. But she did not arrive at this insight spontaneously; it was brought home to her by a public servant whose task is just that. That the newspaper printed her letter to the editor was hardly fortuitous, for improving the living conditions of elderly singles is an increasingly urgent social concern. Of the changes the Japanese family system has undergone over the last several decades the steady increase since the mid-1980s of the proportion of single person households and the decrease of number of household members are among the most consequential. (Figure 3.1.) Social analysts of recent developments have, therefore, come to the conclusion that ‘the increase of elderly persons living alone is
becoming a social problem’ (Eijingu sÜgÜkenkyñ sentª, 2002: 36). To a large extent, though not exclusively, the increase of single person households is on account of single senior citizens, who like Misao Kawauchi, have no spouse or other family and, therefore, live by themselves. Her daughter, as is evident from the letter, lives elsewhere, and occasionally comes to visit her, but in her everyday life she manages alone. Upon reflection the idea of providing information for the event of an emergency appealed to her. Clearly, her neighbourhood network is not such that she can take immediate assistance for granted.
