There is a thought-provoking sentence in the "Fukuoka 100" action plan to address the challenge of aging: "To establish a mechanism for making individuals and society happy." ”
As life expectancy continues to increase, the "era of 100 years is also common" may not be far away. How to create a future that "can grow old calmly"? What is the "twilight of life" in the ideal "color"? ...... In the context of the aging of the world's population, this is not only a personal choice question, but also a social choice question.
According to the latest data, there are as many as 36.4 million elderly people aged 65 and above in Japan, accounting for 29.1% of the total population, a record high. Among them, centenarians have exceeded 80,000 people.
As one of the most livable cities in Japan, Fukuoka, the largest city in the Kyushu region, is trying to give its own answer. In recent years, Fukuoka City has actively explored and practiced the economic support system for the elderly, the social support system, and public policy choices, and has put forward an ambitious goal of creating a healthy social development model that focuses on "100-year-old life" by 2025.
Enjoy the "ambition" of 100 years old
What kind of color can a 100-year-old life have?
At a nursing home in Fukuoka City, 118-year-old Ritsuko Tanaka represents an answer. Her goal in life is to live to be 120 years old. Previously, Tanaka has been recognized by Guinness World Records as "the world's longest-lived elderly person" and "the world's longest-lived woman". She usually wakes up at 6 a.m. every morning and maintains a vibrant rhythm of life: doing broadcast gymnastics, solving math problems and playing chess, and like a young person, she loves chocolate and coke.
As the "longevity business card" of Fukuoka City, the world's oldest grandmother often receives surprises and blessings from people. In fact, Fukuoka has long been considered one of the best places in Japan for retirement, and is often featured in multiple surveys of livable cities around the world. Recently, Forbes magazine selected "the world's healthiest city with the healthiest lifestyle in 2021", and Fukuoka City ranked seventh in the world.
Ritsuko Tanaka, the world's oldest-lived elder, celebrates her 118th birthday. This article is a GJ diagram
Jin Qingyuan, an architect who travels between China and Japan, has lived and worked in Fukuoka for nearly 10 years. In his view, it is a livable city that is in harmony with nature and has developed urban functions. He plans to spend his old age in a mountainous and watery place on the west side of Fukuoka City: a few minutes down from the station to walk home, and a few steps to see the seaside.
He noticed that the number of long-lived local people with vitality was increasing. As of August this year, Fukuoka City has a total population of more than 1.62 million, of which the elderly population is about 630,000, and there are more than 1,500 elderly people over the age of 100. This has an encouraging side, but it is also a stark footnote to an aging society. Although Fukuoka is one of several cities in Japan where the population growth curve has rarely risen in recent years, a series of problems brought about by the unavoidable aging process are already clear.
In fact, all of Japan is facing the "2025 problem" of deep aging. Ma Lizhong, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Shanghai University, pointed out that the so-called "clump generation" born in Japan's first post-war baby boom will all enter the ranks of 75-year-olds in 2025. At that time, Japan will usher in an unprecedented "ultra-aging society": 1 in 3 people is over 65 years old, and 1 in every 5 people is over 75 years old, which will bring a series of challenges in terms of labor structure, social security, and financial budget. In response, Japan has made a series of responses: amending the Law on Employment stability for the elderly to support the employment of the elderly until the age of 70; implementing an incentive mechanism to postpone the payment of pensions to alleviate the pressure on social security and finance; increasing the introduction of foreign talents; encouraging technological innovation, the development of AI facilities and robots to make up for the shortage of labor...
In Fukuoka City, people want to cope with aging faster. In March 2017, the city of Fukuoka formulated the "Healthy Advanced City Strategy" and proposed a specific action plan called "Fukuoka 100", which is considered to be the first city in Japan to directly list the "list of challenges" in dealing with aging.
Starting from the various details of the lives of the elderly, the "clearance tasks" on this list include a series of specific measures such as regular online training, health knowledge lectures, online medical guidance, re-employment support, and social opportunities for the elderly. After several years of hard work, according to the official website, Fukuoka City has completed 88 tasks on the list.
Ma Lizhong has visited Fukuoka City several times. He believes that Fukuoka has a clear urban positioning for its own development: If toyota motors and other products were once regarded as Japan's national "business card" during the period of rapid economic development, Fukuoka is now known for its welfare concepts and policies. Taking the "Fukuoka 100" action plan as an example, around the creation of a "100-year-old society", Fukuoka City proposes to achieve three major changes: from "experience-based" pension to "empirical" pension, relying on the professionalism of science and technology and scientific research; from formulating unified rules to respecting individual diversity, taking into account everyone's needs in a softer way; from the dispersion of pension resources to organic integration, from a more comprehensive and integrated perspective to look at the pension problem.
To build a society where you can enjoy a 100-year-old life, Fukuoka City has its own "ambitions", and in the "Healthy Advanced City Strategy", it is clearly proposed to strive to become an advanced model for Japan and even Asia, to build a base for Asian nursing technology companies and long-term care education, and to provide "Fukuoka Answers" for the response to the aging problem.
Retain the familiar "everyday"
Japan has long been dealing with the challenges of aging, but in a society that is no longer young, how to spend a dignified and abundant old age still tests many Elderly Japanese people. In the novel "The End of the Silver Age", the problem of annuity, the problem of lonely death, and the problem of medical expenses all directly hit the depression of Japan's aging society.
For Yuji Ogawa, 50, nothing is more poignant than the scene of her 84-year-old mother "stubbornly" cleaning the yard in the heavy rain. Seven years ago, he realized that his mother was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and quit his job to take care of her.
Since then, Ogawa has established an "Alzheimer's Café" in Fukuoka City, where elderly people and caregivers with the disease can seek advice, support, and understanding. He has an orange band around his neck, indicating that he is an "Alzheimer's supporter" and ready to help. He hopes that "people encounter kindness, not despair." ”
Ogawa's choice is not alone. According to official statistics, as of August this year, 37 such cafes have been built in Fukuoka City. It is worth mentioning that these cafes, which are initiated by the government, recruit operators for the whole society, and the government gives different amounts of subsidies according to the number of years of operation. According to a survey, most of Fukuoka City's "Alzheimer's Cafes" are run by companies, most of them near the community.
These special cafes help elderly people with Alzheimer's disease to keep the "daily routine" of living at home. In fact, this is also the key aspect of Fukuoka City's development of the pension industry in recent years: in addition to hardware construction, pay more attention to software construction - care for the living conditions of the elderly, build support for home care and community pension, reduce the pressure of the state and society for the elderly, and try to help the elderly maintain a familiar lifestyle.
In the face of aging and death, can you still be an ordinary person? The so-called "everyday" is to have the dignity of ordinary life. In the eyes of some industry insiders, the scale of Fukuoka's pension industry is not prominent in Japan, but such a concept has received a lot of attention.
In a nursing home in Fukuoka City called "Reunion", nursing staff treat the elderly like neighbors, help when it is time to help, leave room for the elderly to move when they don't need it, and provide services according to demand to help maintain the elderly's ability to take care of themselves. Koizu Katsuru, a consulting expert in the Japanese nursing industry, pointed out that the root of the nursing industry is "people".
How can we protect the "daily life" cherished by the elderly? The answer given by Fukuoka City is to make everyone feel that this is also the "daily life" of their lives.
View of Fukuoka city.
Fukuoka City strives to create a social atmosphere in which all people participate in the elderly: this is not just a matter for a certain group and industry, but for the whole society and everyone. The participants in the "Fukuoka 100" action plan include almost all social entities, including enterprises, ordinary citizens, research institutions, and medical institutions. Jin Qingyuan believes that in the concept of Fukuoka City, it is not for the sake of the elderly, but to treat the pension as a health promotion cause of the whole society.
It is worth mentioning that universities and research institutions have played an important role in the formulation of Fukuoka's relevant strategies. Meticulous social science research and social research provide an important reference for scientific formulation and dynamic adjustment of policies. On the last pages of Fukuoka City's "Healthy Advanced City Strategy," which is nearly 40 pages, the main players in the development and review of this strategy are listed, almost all of whom are professionals from universities and research institutions. In addition, many universities also popularize knowledge and cultivate talents for the cause of old-age care.
Such a broad, diverse and multi-angle participation of the whole people impressed Malizhong. He also saw "health welfare convenience stores" on the streets of Fukuoka City. After participating in the pension business, an ordinary convenience store introduced health care services such as measuring blood pressure, and effectively used existing resources. Moreover, the elderly as a group have not been too prominent in policy expression, Ma Lizhong said, "They emphasize the whole society, create a social atmosphere of participation of the whole people, and gradually cultivate the sense of mission of citizens for the cause of old-age care." ”
Creating a warm "bond"
Open the Fukuoka City Government website, "Promoting social participation of the elderly" is placed in a prominent position. In the context of the "lonely death" of the elderly becoming a major problem in Japanese society, creating a warm "bond" has become an important issue in the cause of old-age care.
Surveys show that about a quarter of Fukuoka's elderly live alone. Over the years, Fukuoka City has continued to promote the Japanese community embedded pension service, revitalize the pension resources, integrate social medical care, long-term care, long-term care prevention, housing and life support, etc., and form a multi-subject participation and multi-service pension model that combines "self-help, other assistance, public assistance, and co-assistance". Jin Qingyuan empathizes with such a "bond". He told this reporter that he was a regular contact for a neighbor old lady named Matsumoto. Mrs. Matsumoto lives alone, and when there is an emergency, he will go to help.
In recent years, the number of scenarios conducive to intergenerational communication has increased. The Fukuoka City Government has established a cooperative mechanism with Fukuoka University to encourage college students to live in the community rather than dormitories. Students were asked to invite seniors to festival events and interact with them regularly. In the downtown Tenjin business district, the number of shops where the elderly can buy a cup of coffee and sit down and rest for only a small symbolic fee is also increasing. Through such detailed design, the intersection of young and old is created.
Fukuoka City holds lectures on dental care for the elderly.
Young people are seen by Fukuoka City as an important link in the "bond". Some experts believe that the power from young people can play an important role in the cause of old-age care, not only to help promote the economic development of the city, but also to make the city full of vitality. In recent years, Fukuoka City has introduced a series of measures in entrepreneurship and innovation to attract young people to settle down and work. With the support of Fukuoka Growth Next, the Fukuoka startup accelerator, the city attracts talent from Japan and abroad. Fukuoka Growth Next has more than 100 startups, 24 of which have received a total of 7.1 billion yen in investment in previous years. Tanaka, founder and CEO of the Sino-Japanese Entrepreneurship and Innovation Accelerator "Craftsman", told this newspaper that Fukuoka City is also very active in supporting entrepreneurship in the field of nursing. In particular, entrepreneurship in the field of health care and nursing has been designated as "nursing technology entrepreneurship", and as a framework to support entrepreneurship in the nursing field, the "Nursing Technology Promotion Association" was established in 2018.
For many Elderly Japanese people, the reassuring "bond" also comes from work. The latest workforce survey shows that 9.06 million elderly people in Japan were still working last year, an increase for 17 consecutive years and a record high. These elderly people have different considerations, some for "financial security", some for the sake of finding companionship and belonging... In April this year, Japan officially implemented the revised "Stability Law on the Employment of the Elderly", requiring companies to ensure employment opportunities for those under the age of 70.
The Fukuoka 70-year-old On-The-Job Assistance Center was established in April 2012 to help the elderly achieve re-employment, expand companies that support the employment of the elderly, and provide employment training support for the elderly. In 2021, according to the center's survey, including Fukuoka City, the number of companies in Fukuoka Prefecture where the number of companies where the elderly can work until the age of 70 has increased to 649, mainly in the fields of service industry and medical care. Ryoko Noda, head of the center, believes that it is also very important to guide the role consciousness of the elderly: "Let them change from people who are helped to people who can also help others." ”
Fukuoka City plans to strengthen the "bond" between people while using advanced technology to serve the cause of the elderly, strengthen the connection between individuals and communities and society, and take into account the needs of the elderly for medical care and long-term care and the needs of social and economic development. There is a thought-provoking sentence in the "Fukuoka 100" action plan to address the challenge of aging: "To establish a mechanism for making individuals and society happy." ”
Produced by Deep Sea Studio
Written by Wu Yuzhen
Edited by Deep Hammer