Dying Alone Becomes New Normal as Japan Spurns Confucius

Itoko Uchida, 82, was counting on the nephew she raised to support her in old age. He refused, forcing her to pay for a sponsor to join the 420,000-long queue of Japanese waiting for a nursing home bed.

With no relatives willing to help, the Tokyo widow had to spend 710,000 yen ($7,600) on a professional service to be her guarantor and assist with an application to a nursing home, she said. An erosion of traditional Confucian values in Japan means fewer elderly are being cared for at home by relatives -- a fact neither Uchida nor Japan’s government were fully prepared for.