The Role of Family Caregivers and Their Working Lives: Convergences and Divergences Between France and Japan

This paper presents the method and results of a comparative research on family caregivers and their professional trajectories in France (Ile de France) and Japan (Osaka).

The aim of the research is to chart two kinds of trajectories in a person’s life: professional and of caregiving, and to examine their interdependence. In the current context of the prolongation of life expectancy, a person can provide care several times in different periods of life, or care for more than one person in parallel at the same time. The care provided may be for different causes of frailty. We should therefore look into the temporality and the global view of the caregiver’s life without limiting the study to a certain type of frailty.

We rely upon a sequential analysis of data on caregiver's trajectories. We also collected data on care networks developed around the caregiver by individuals participating in the care, including care for the caregiver. The typologies of professional trajectories are analyzed in relation with variables such as socio-demographic characteristics of the caregiver and care-receiver, types of care networks, etc.

We try to study the different configurations that come out for Ile de France and for Osaka, while situating them in the context of the public welfare and labor markets of each country and region. We will be interested to know, for instance, what traits of caregivers come out, and on what type of conception of care and work related logic they are based.