title: Care Robotics in Aging Japan: Creating Technical Solutions for the World’s Demographic Problem?
creator: Rathmann, Martin
subject: ddc-300
subject: 300 Social sciences
subject: ddc-320
subject: 320 Political science
subject: ddc-600
subject: 600 Technology (Applied sciences)
description: Japan is an ideal country for studying the effects of population aging that cause a wide range of societal issues, ranging from labor shortages and increasing pressure on the welfare state, to growing old age-related poverty and the need for improving productivity to sustain economic prosperity. The research question, which the scientific exploration at hand addresses, is what kind of technologies, generically referred to as robots, may be able to mitigate care problems and generate new solutions, and even further, improve the general health of the Japanese population or serve as a blueprint for other aging societies.    Therefore, the case of Japan can be utilized to describe which strategies decision-makers face, as well as the challenges and opportunities caused by such a demographic transition to cope with the effects. The Japanese government prioritizes the large-scale introduction of robotics in areas of worsening labor shortages and daily life. The New Robot Strategy (NRS), a five-year policy-action plan compiled in 2015, is the new tool to coordinate the support for actors in the robotics industry, to finally leverage the predicted large market potential. Whereas policy-makers are concerned with creating a better infrastructure for the creation of versatile robots (e.g. regulative considerations, channeling of subsidies), the bureaucracy (e.g. METI, MHLW) is supposed to supervise the policy implementation and to link important public and private actors of robotics development (e.g. universities, robot-makers, research institutes). The coordination of this triangle of three stakeholder groups will be vital for the success of large-scale implementation of robotics to lessen the burden on caregivers, improve average health and wellbeing and exploit the economic potential of the silver market.    Rapidly aging societies are a worldwide demographic phenomenon. Whatever feasible technical solution for care Japan invents for its own society is likely to have an impact elsewhere in the world. If the development of care robots works in Japan, it will likely be of fundamental relevance to other aging societies and may incidentally come to be one of the next export successes for Japan. It might be a chance for the government to kill two birds with one stone: taking care of Japan’s elderly and the Japanese economy at the same time. Whether there is a realistic chance this unique technical-driven approach to solving social problems to work out will be at the heart of this academic inquiry.
date: 2020
type: Dissertation
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/28627/1/Rathmann%20DISS%20complete%20200713%20FINAL.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00028627
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-286273
identifier:   Rathmann, Martin  (2020) Care Robotics in Aging Japan: Creating Technical Solutions for the World’s Demographic Problem?  [Dissertation]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/28627/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng