Male family careers: adapting to a new phenomenon

Drawing lessons from France and Japan

To conduct her study, Dr. Hiroko Umegaki will develop a comparative understanding based on fieldwork in Paris and Tokyo of middle-aged men involved in elderly and child care. To provide context for each phase of fieldwork, Dr. Hiroko Umegaki explains, she first focuses on understanding the relevant social conditions and policies that affect care provision for her informants. The project’s next step is to conduct fieldwork in Paris to understand carers’ main risks. Then, the research plans to move on to fieldwork in Tokyo, here again, to surface what risks Japanese male caregivers face and how they address them. Particularly,  Dr. Hiroko Umegaki will identify relevant everyday care practices, placing middle-aged men as carers in the context of their familial care relations as sons, fathers and sons-in-law.

« Demographically speaking, it is impossible that women be the only family care givers anymore », says Dr. Hiroko Umegaki. « Men are led to contribute now, and so we need a specific analysis of how caregiving impacts them ». By investigating this emerging phenomenon and the risks associated with it, her project contributes to addressing one of today’s most pressing issues. Focusing on influential France and super-aged Japan, her objective is to provide an understanding that can be applied to other industrialised countries. Her findings will help identify ways to prevents risks related to pressing care issues in contemporary societies.