June 17, 2014
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2014 June 11 - 17 [WELFARE]
‘Revision’ of nursing care insurance program will force more workers to quit their jobs |
Tsukada Tsuneo, 89, living in Nagano City, was diagnosed with dementia four years ago. Since then, Tsukada Kazuhiro, 60, Tsuneo’s son, has cared for his father while working at a railroad company with the help of his 88-year-old mother who is suffering from a heart disease.
The Child and Family Care Leave Law stipulates that workers can take nursing care leave for up to 93 days in total. “I feel as if it is telling me to quit my job when the care leave period exceeds three months,” Kazuhiro said.
At present, more than 2.91 million people are nursing their family members while working. About 60% of them are in their 40s and 50s. The number of people who left their jobs because of having to care for family members reached 487,000 in the past five years.
Ritsumeikan University Professor Tsudome Masatoshi pointed to deficiencies in social services programs as a cause of the increasing number of workers who leave their jobs due to having to care for family members. He noted that it becomes more and more difficult for workers to balance work with caring for their family members as the state has severely restricted the frequency of using home-visit care services and employers have forced regular employees to work long hours.
During a three-month family care leave period, the state gives the workers approximately 40% of their wages. Tsudome argues that the government should improve the nursing care leave system to at least the same level as the childcare leave system. Workers raising their babies are allowed to take parental leave for up to one year in principle, and receive 67% of their wages for the first half year and 50% for the latter half.
The professor also condemned the draft law for leading persons requiring assistance to depend on volunteers and neighborhood associations, not public service facilities. “Advocating the need to socialize nursing care, the administration introduced the public nursing care insurance system and has levied high premiums on the general public. Nevertheless, the state is trying to place care burdens on family members along with neighbors. This is a clear breach of promise,” he stressed.
Anybody can be burdened at any time with having to provide nursing care. The Abe Cabinet should listen to public criticism sincerely and improve the current programs instead of worsening them.
Past related article:
> Joint effort against adverse change in nursing-care insurance growing in Hokkaido [January 23, 2014]
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