Introduction
The past couple of decades have seen the world’s population adopt various aspects of changes in terms of the food people eat, the entertainment activities they engage in, the modes of communication they use, their interests and other lifestyle changes. The main architects and pursuers of these transformative endeavors are the youths and the young adults.
The ways in which people conduct their businesses have also changed. The new Japanese business trend is a good case study that can attest to these changes. However, during this rush to embrace new modes of lifestyles, there seems to be a whole generation that has been left behind, which is the elderly.
This group of people played a very crucial role in the past, by offering wise counsel to other members of the society. They were heavily consulted when making important decisions, especially those that significantly affect the society. However, this is not the case today as the present young generation have not only ignored the elderly but also considered their counsel irrelevant (Borovoy, 2008, p 568).
The Thesis Statement
The aim of this research proposal is to study the relationship between the present younger generation and the elderly in the Japan’s family setup and establish their correlation.
Methodology
Each member will be issued with a questionnaire that he or she will give to the oldest member of the family to fill. In case where the oldest member of the family is unable to understand the contents of the questionnaire, then another literate member of the family will read it loudly and interpret it to him or her.
Discussion
In collaboration with twenty nine other students from my class, we shall undertake to conduct a study that is aimed at ascertaining the roles played by the elderly in Japanese households. The study will require each member of the team to perform interview tests to the eldest members of their families based on a couple of predetermined subjects.
This study will generally be concerned with the perception of the younger generation towards the elderly generation. In order to effectively establish this, we will seek to find out the roles the elderly can play in their households so as to influence the perceptions of the younger generations towards them.
It is common knowledge that the global economy has recently faced some hard times, normally characterized by recessions and depressions. In essence, there have been a lot of worries across many generations, on the best economic practices that can be applied to evade these scenarios. It is also important to note that the elderly in most households are people who are either headed for retirement or who have recently retired.
They are therefore in great positions to offer sound counsel to their families on issues such as the global economic recession. On the other hand, there are new and bright market leaders who are not only young but also capable of understanding the global market trends.
We shall seek to find out the views of these two groups of people on this issue. In this regard, we shall be on a mission to establish if the elderly people could offer wise and up to date counsel that can accurately help address the prevailing situations.
According to the available demographic statistics, the population of the world has increased tremendously over the past three decades. This has led to the introduction and adoption of new concepts of family planning. The prevailing family trends indicate that the now elderly population had relatively large numbers of children, and some of them were even in polygamous marriages.
But with the prevailing economic constraints, the few jobs that are hard to come by and the huge responsibilities that are involved in bringing up children, these patterns have significantly changed over time. In this respect, this study will focus on finding out the perception of these two generations toward family planning.
Data Analysis
The data that will be acquired from this research study will be sorted out and categorized as either quantitative or qualitative. Analyzing the quantitative data will involve the interpretation of the raw and tangible components of the information that has been obtained from the study (Grbich, 2007, p. 120).
This data will include the number of the elderly people who can authoritatively offer sound counsel to their families on global economic conditions and the number of the currently educated young people who can care to listen to their elders as they talk about this issue.
The number of elderly people who support family planning, a viable option for addressing the unsustainable population growth, will also be enumerated against that of the younger generation. The analysis of the qualitative data on the other hand will involve interpretation of the intangible components of the information obtained from the study.
Conclusion
The views held by the aged and the young generations on some topics, can be greatly influenced by age, exposure and level of education (Postigoa, 2010, p. 341). As much as this concept is true, some elderly individuals can be reluctant to embrace ideas that come from the younger generation for fear of abdicating their roles.
Younger people, especially the educated ones, always assume that the counsel offered by the elderly, has been overtaken by events and is therefore not of significant importance in solving most of the present day’s problems.
References
Borovoy, A. (2008). Japan’s hidden youths: mainstreaming the emotionally distressed in Japan. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 32(4), 552-576.
Grbich, C. (2007). Qualitative data analysis: An introduction. London: SAGE Publications.
Postigoa, J. M. (2010). The co-residence of elderly people with their children and grandchildren. Educational Gerontology, 36(4), 330-349.