Abstract
For over forty years, most residents in rural areas of Japan have relied on private vehicles to meet their mobility needs. Today, however, the rapid ageing of the population, coupled with low birth rates and migration of young people to urban areas, is posing a variety of new transport challenges. Most notably, the proportion of drivers to non-drivers is getting smaller. This means that non-drivers who relied on family and neighbours for trips in the past, as well as elderly residents who give up their licenses, have fewer people to drive them. Current policy debates tend to focus on technological “solutions”, and underestimate the complex social, cultural and inter-personal relationships which underlie transport dependencies in these environments. Using a qualitative semi-structured survey, the current study explores the current mobilities of older people living in a small rural district in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The resulting analysis reveals how cultural attitudes and social norms affect the ways in which older people manage their mobilities.
Highlights
As recently noted by the United Nations, “Population ageing—the increasing share of older persons in the population—is poised to become one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century, with implications for most sectors of society” (United Nations, 2015)
After the first round of coding, it became clear that social norms and cultural attitudes have a significant bearing on older people’s mobilities, whether people ask others for lifts
The present study explored the mobilities of older people in a small rural district in western Japan using a qualitative approach, allowing older people to describe their mobilities and how they perceived their current mobility situation in their own words
Summary
As recently noted by the United Nations, “Population ageing—the increasing share of older persons in the population—is poised to become one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century, with implications for most sectors of society” (United Nations, 2015). Is the share of the population over the age of 65 rising in relation to the rest of the population of most industrialized countries, but the absolute number of elderly people is increasing rapidly as life expectancies increase. These three trends—the growing share, the rising number, and the increasing longevity of people—are bringing issues related to the mobilities of older people to the centre of public policy debates in high and middle-income countries. In prefectures outside of Social Inclusion, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, Pages 183–195 major metropolitan areas, have been ageing and facing depopulation at faster rates than urban areas.
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