Gender-equal society from the perspective of rural lifestyle structure

This paper will identify the current situation and problems associated with an aging population, based on fluctuations in local lifestyle structures in rural society. We will also investigate ways in which to adapt to the various problems that occur in an aging society, and the present state of gender-equal society. Currently, the matter of caring for the elderly has become ever more serious as rural society in Japan encounters the problems of a progressively aging population and a decreasing number of people living in each household. In underpopulated regions, the ratio of 'elderly households', whose members are aged 60 years or over, has reached twenty per cent. In other words, as households becomeprogressively smaller, rural regions, which had been the model for the "Japan-type Welfare Society" (in which the elderly are cared for by other family members), are losing both theirpotential to care for the elderly and their sense of lifestyle security. Hereafter, it will be necessary to reconstruct weakening community lifestyles in regional society, through an enriched system that allows for husband-and-wife teams to participate in production and economic activities.