Living Alone in Old Age, Part Two of a Woman’s Happy Life

Written by a Japanese professor of gender, translated…

At the End of Every Life, Everybody IS Alone

It doesn’t matter if you’re married or single, no matter who it is, you’d become, all alone on your own at the very end.

Actually, in Japan, fifty-five percent of women in the sixty-five years and old group are without a spouse, and, 46.1 percent of these individual had lost their husbands, the population of the divorced is about 3.5 percent, and, only 3.3 percent are unmarried.  Looking at the men, the percentage of singles is very low, at seventeen percent.  After age eighty, there are, eighty-three percent of the population of woman who are single.

Based off of the “World Health Statistics” published by the WHO, in 2012, the average age for females in Japan is eighty-seven, and eighty for males.  With the coming of age, the population of women outnumbers that of men.  In most of the facilities for elderly, women make up the majority, and we can even say, that the 21^st Century is the Century for older women.

Mostly, those who’d lost a spouse to death or to a marriage ending, are called “Being Single Again”, but, the result of this group is NO different than those who’d “stayed single all along”.  There are more and more of the members of the population over age forty-five who, due to divorce or death of a spouse, became single again.  And, because the way of life is different for the groups, interacting with married individuals, those who’d stayed single would feel that they “wouldn’t know what those who have husbands and children are talking about”, and, toward those who’d become single again, they’d welcomed them like old friends who’d finally returned home.

Actually, these single again women don’t have that much time with the families present day.  In this day and age, where people are having just one or two kids, because of school, or work, the kids will eventually move out and become independent, and, some of the kids became “single symbiosis”, became landlord and tenant with their parents.  All of these women, after returning to singles, they no longer needed to rush home and cook and clean like Cinderella anymore.  For a long time, they’d played the role of a mother or a wife who rushes home at dusk, to prepare the meals, and now, even if they’d stayed out all night, nobody can say anything about it.

“Being Surrounded by Offspring” Doesn’t Necessarily Mean that

You Have a Wonderful Old Age

The biggest difference between those who had stayed single and those who became single again is in whether or not they had children.  “Loser Ladies”, other than being without a spouse, they also don’t have children, and, although “Winner Ladies” one day will face the fact, that their husband would be gone one day, but, they’d still have their offspring, and for just that, the “Loser Ladies” are beaten out.  But in this day and age, can you really, have a well-prepared old age IF you have children?

Although you see the impacts of the aging of the population more apparently by the day, but, the elderly who are living with their young are declining in numbers.  On the contrary, the elderly couple family makeup and those singles living on their own are on the increase.

In the way that current elderly people are living, the couples who are both alive live together, to look after each other; if the spouse needed the care, the other person would usually shoulder the responsibilities for caring for the person, and, they’d move in with their offspring after their spouses passed.  Even at age eighty, and you still need to care for your spouse, and, at this time, your offspring are over fifty, mostly had, left home, started their own families, and in choosing to move in with one’s offspring, one needed to leave the familiar surroundings.  And, because the young who is still working couldn’t leave the surrounding environment, and, if the elderly moves in with the son’s family, the grandchild is already grown, and, the daughter-in-law is the lady of the house, and so, moving in with the son, then, the elderly MUST follow every single rules set by the daughter-in-law.

Living to a certain age, losing the environment which one lives in, as well as one’s social circles, forcing oneself, to adapt to a strange and brand new environment, and must follow someone else’s rules, even becoming reliant on someone else to care for you, becoming a “trouble maker” in others’ views, how is that happy?

And so, because growing old is imminent, there’s NO way you can DODGE the effects of old age, and, there’s NO way you can fully prepare for what comes next (dementia, illnesses, etc., etc., etc.), you can only hope, AND pray, that you end up well, and this also shows, how the elderly populations sometimes will become an imposition to the younger generations, whether or not they want to.