AGING IN JAPAN

For Jennifer’s Master’s thesis, she spent 12 weeks in Japan studying the effects of modernization on the Japanese family, specifically the Japanese elders. Her photos look at the rebuilding of community as an elder is placed in a nursing home because of economic or safety issues within the family. In traditional Japanese family structure the grandparents live with the family until they pass. It can be quite traumatic for an elder to leave their home. Jennifer studied how these elders were able to reconnect and build a new community within the confines of a nursing home.