...This chapter explores the long-term socioeconomic changes in Japan since the 1980s from the perspective of middle-aged and older people. Drawing on interviews with twenty-one men and women, it highlights the changing nature of what it is to be a man in Japan today. More specifically, it considers...

... if the Confucian valuing of age and aging were implemented via informal social norms, on the one hand, or via explicit institutional mechanisms and procedures, on the other. Finally, it discusses a hypothetical Confucian deliberative democracy that tries to ensure political equality among citizens over the course...

... of the typical difficulties faced by migrants who return home to Japan, particularly in terms of the job market. Returnees tend to reflect longingly on NYC and speak nostalgically of their time there, rather than talk about the process of reintegration. It also explores issues of aging and gender for returnees...

...This chapter examines the ethical implications of aging in a modern society. Drawing on traditional Confucian ethics as well as local community ethics based on a close reading of the Analects of Confucius, the chapter explores ethical possibilities for contemporary extensions...

...This chapter interviews aging Hmong Americans who express concern over their dependency upon others in their old age, social isolation, sedentary living, and the lack of financial autonomy, all challenges extant in American life but virtually nonexistent in Laos, where small agrarian villages...

...This chapter examines the relationships of grandparents and great-grandparents to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with particular emphasis on the meaning of grandchildren in aging and old age in the Japanese family. It first considers changes in the Japanese family over the twentieth...