Releasing from the oppression: caregiving for the elderly parents of Japanese working women.

Caregiving in Japan is defined as predominately a woman's responsibility. However, caregiving has been largely understudied as a lived experience or within a cultural frame of reference. In an estimated 50% of Japanese households, women are currently caregivers of one or more family members. However, the relative absence of information on their experiences has held back the development of programs and services to support their caregiving. In this article, I present results of a grounded-theory study that explored the experiences of Japanese working women caregivers as they cared for the elderly family member in their home. I interviewed 11 women caregivers including 6 daughters and 5 daughters-in-law. I generated a substantive grounded theory, resulting in the identification of the core concept of "releasing self," which included three dimensions: laughing away, self-belief, and losing enthusiasm for the elderly and elderly care.