Women's Changing Roles and Help to the Elderly: Attitudes of Women in the United States and Japan

Abstract

A three-generation study of women's attitudes toward gender-appropriate roles and filial responsibility was conducted by the Philadelphia Geriatric Center and replicated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology. U.S. gender-role attitudes were more egalitarian than those of the Japanese. In both countries, all three generations agreed that care of the elderly is a family responsibility, but attitudes toward filial responsibility were more positive among the Americans than among the Japanese.