Paper short abstract:

Rapid social changes lead to middle-aged couples providing elderly care for both set of parents. Men as sons and sons-in-law selectively undertake care practices that reconcile with their sense of masculinity. Such care arrangements result in sons-in-law increased importance in the family relations.

Paper long abstract:

Historically under the ie norm the first son and his wife had the duty to look after his elderly parents. Rapid social changes, such as aging population, decreasing birth-rate, declining Confucian belief, and changes in parent-children relationships, increasingly place pressure on younger people who may even need to look after both sets of parents. Based on fieldwork of middle aged married couples in Hōjō city, Hyōgo, in 2014, I ask how the couples arrange care for all their elder parents, negotiating their roles amongst themselves and their siblings. My main focus is on how men reconcile their involvement in elderly care with their sense of masculinity, as elderly care has been considered a domain of women even when the first sons had the duty of care. Daughters, who increasingly commit to care for their own parents, negotiate support with their siblings, which may lead to harmonious and conflictual relations. The wife also draws her husband, the son-in-law, into providing care for parents-in-law to perform selected activities, 'additional help', such as accompanying to hospital or cutting weeds, which they consider part of the chikara shigoto (heavy work) of elderly care, which allows the husband to reconcile his involvement with his sense of masculinity. In turn, the wife's appreciation for his help supports her performing elderly care for the husband's parents, allowing the husband to fulfil his weakened, but not absent, sense of filial duty to his parents. Thus, although in the discussions of Japanese family relationships sons-in-law are traditionally marginal, my ethnographic research suggests that sons-in-law are increasingly important in the Japanese family relations.