I especially wonder about situations where you can no longer care for yourself, etc. Are any of you facing situations like this? Do you know of others in this situation? I am in my 40s and still able to MAYBE “get out” of here, but I wonder and worry what is ahead for me and my wife (non-Japanese too). From what I have heard, many old peoples’ homes still severely limit visitations due to covid, even for family in Japan. Being in such a situation sounds like prison hell.
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I would imagine it looks exactly like senior care for Japanese people. From visiting my wife’s grandfather it’s not something I look forward to.
I have wondered the same. What will I be doing if I am still here after retirement and still somewhat healthy? Being stuck in a care home here does seems like hell. If you are lucky enough to have your own home and kids to assist then maybe not so bad… dunno. I guess the question is what do you want to be doing after retirement? How do you imagine spending your remaining years?
If you have no money or family, it’s as grim as anywhere else.
Not sure what you expect it any where else
I have heard that when people become old and get dementia, they also forget the language. Especially immigrants forget the local language and cannot communicate with the nursing home staff. It seems that there are not a few cases like this.
“Get out” towards where? Into what?
Perhaps I’m biased because the standard of living here is higher than back home. I have nothing to fly back to.
If you fly back home, what will be your retirement there in comparison to Japan?
Just stay out of those bang em and bin em joints
Not staying here. If you can go back home to your country when you retire. Thats what im doing. I’m moving back to Mexico for the community. I don’t want to end up dying alone here like many old people do.
Ask Akemi at the kebab shop.
I think if you pay into pension I’d imagine you receive it back when your old
Just as in most other countries, you should expect to have to self-fund your retirement. If you haven’t started saving and investing towards being able to do so, the best time was yesterday, and the second best time is now.
It all comes down to money. There are some nice assisted living facilities such as Grancreer https://www.grancreer.com/senior/
I certainly wonder about it. I am in my 50s. My Japanese is intermediate and that not in terms of reading/writing, so I either need to really up my game once I retire at 60, or we move to America.
I have been to see my wife’s grandmother. The facility wasn’t bad. I mean…I saw worse in the US back in the 90s when I did p/t jobs.
As with everywhere in the world that I am familiar with, it varies greatly depending on how much money you have.
Have a lot of money? You can buy into one of those retirement communities that have a full medical team onsite 24/7, have all sorts of facilities like gyms, pools, etc, and provide an overall high level of care & service.
Have a truckload of money? You can arrange for most of that yourself, including having a live-in nurse & care team if you wish or need.
The less money you have, the lower the quality of elder care you will receive.
soon as i notice my faculties slipping, that’s when it’s time to liquidate everything and party my way to the grave before i wind up in a shitty care home.
regarding language, I am not worried because we already have good translators, 2-3-4 decades from now, language barrier wont be a thing.
regarding care, there are insurances (kango=nursing,care) that cover having the money when you are too old to care for yourself
whether you personally end up in a nice home, foreigners will be treated nicely by society then, seniors will have robots or euthanization as outlook, I think no one knows
What can you afford?
I dont plan to stay here at that point. Even if i had no family back home its going to be so much more challenging here.
Im still young but pay into my home counties pension scheme still. Worst case i go home and can collect both, sell any assets like home i have here and fund my days from it all
Comparing the experience now and your experience in 20-25 years time I think is a bit pointless. The next 25 years will not be like the last 25 years.
My guess is societal collapse or a golden age. Either way you’ll be busy. Just get enough money to live in a virtual world until your body gives up or the robots forget to feed you.
This is from someone who is in the same situation. Although I do have a long term partner and his family who I am close with.
I’ll still betting on something chaotic happening in the next 10-20 years.
Couldn’t imagine a Japanese woman abusing an old person
I wouldn’t worry about language as all the nursing home staff are going to be foreigners by the time you need care.
At the moment almost all nursing or care homes won’t accept non-Japanese people. I know that from a Japanese woman who works at an elderly care home in Tokyo.
Old folk’s home in Thailand for me if needed
There’s a thing called 介護保険. They evaluate how much help you need, and based on that you can get various types of help. My dad just got evaluated at 要支援2 level and he’ll get a helper three days a week for about one hour each to do stuff around the house for him (cooking, cleaning, whatever they decide together) for about 4,000 JPY out of pocket monthly. They also have a bento delivery service which I don’t know how much that is but imagine it’s fairly cheap. That’s still on the low end of evaluated needs so there’s a lot of help you can get for cheap in Japan without going into a care home.
It’s depressing tbh. I talked to one senior who said that euthanasia should be an option for elderly people. Crumples your heart so much
My wife’s mother (93?) is in senior care, for a few years now. She doesn’t have much pension, but the care is priced based on that–the care fee is adjusted to match the pension you get. (prolly some 介護 factored in)
I was only there a few times before the pandemic shut down visiting, and as mentioned elsewhere, visiting is still restricted. But it’s not too bad, and I think that at that age, I’d be okay with it. She apparently plays a lot of cards, mahjong, and other games/activities. My wife set her up with a senior-oriented phone, she called regularly and used it at first, not much these days. I don’t remember seeing anyone with a computer/tablet there, but I’m sure that’s possible/easy. I don’t think they had wifi or a wired connection in the rooms, so tethering off a good phone plan would be the way to go.
I’m US, and based on talks with my sibs, and a stepmother who had dementia and needed a nursing home, care in the US is exorbitantly expensive. That stepmother cost ~$6000/month, and that was years ago. But that was a full on nursing home, and assisted living is cheaper, but still…
There are a couple other more expensive options in town here, I suppose these are more like assisted living than care homes.
I hope I go like my dad. He died at home, in bed, a day shy of his 97th birthday.
But he married for care–his third time. My mother passed long ago, he remarried the woman who eventually went into a nursing home and later died, his third marriage was to a woman who was a year younger than me, and I’m the third kid in our family, there might have been a 25-30yr age difference. Her ‘bonus’ is that he was classed as a disabled vet (WWII former POW), and she gained that and social security from him when he passed–still collecting survivor’s bennies as far as I know. She did take care of him, and kept him out of care homes of any kind, so fair trade, iMO.
As someone else said, it’s about how much money you have, not necessarily which country you’re living in.
And sometimes it’s also about who you know. I’m half Japanese and my grandmother, who passed away during the pandemic, was in an elderly home where pretty much everyone knew her because it’s a small rural community. They took good care of her, best that they could considering she had dementia and some other health conditions, and we got regular updates and could visit any time.
I recommend getting in touch with your local 地域包括センター who are equipped to handle senior care and can guide you through the process. My Japanese parent is now in their 70s and was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and my non-Japanese parent is ill equipped to handle their care. I called the center from an entire other prefecture and they helped sort out the situation in my stead. The disease hasn’t advanced too far and the staff are very proactive in terms of preparing for the future, so I have a feeling we’ll be able to visit some nursing homes and settle on a place that ticks most, if not all, of our boxes. In the meantime, they helped us apply for 介護保険 and we can now make use of various services so that my Japanese parent can avoid going to a nursing home for as long as possible.
My non-Japanese parent works in a nursing home, by the way, and there’s plenty of foreign staff there. This is a bit out in the countryside, so I’m sure that number is bigger in larger cities. But I don’t think you have to worry too much about language. They’re fairly used to taking care of people who can’t properly communicate, Japanese or not…