Care Systems in Crisis and Innovative Welfare Technologies: Stakeholders’ Views Regarding Care Robots in Hong Kong SAR (China), Ireland and Japan

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Innovative welfare technologies are frequently presented as the solution to global ageing. Using care robots as an example, this chapter asks: what is the perceived use of care robots in long-term care settings in Western Europe and East Asia, and what do stakeholders in different jurisdictions think of facilitators and barriers to a wider rollout of digital welfare technologies in their own care systems? Our previous research demonstrated that narratives in newspapers regarding care robots are more nuanced in Western Europe than in East Asia. We also found that Japan has been portrayed (in newspapers outside Japan) as the land of robot. For this study, we selected one country (Ireland) from Western Europe and one jurisdiction from East Asia (Hong Kong SAR (China)) where the development of public care provision has been relatively recent. We compared and contrasted these with Japan, where a universal public care system has been in place and care robots have been promoted both by the government and the market. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 50 stakeholders in total in Hong Kong, Ireland and Japan. The participants included care professionals, service providers, technology developers, researchers and policymakers. The questions explored their knowledge of and views regarding the current use of assistive technologies in long-term care systems. The findings indicate that there is a sense of urgency in these jurisdictions that more welfare technologies, including care robots, should be utilised to ease the pressures on carers and systems. In recent years, the government’s investment in this domain has stepped up in Hong Kong, and a more general eHealth agenda has been adopted within the government’s planned care reform in Ireland. Japan has been an early adopter of robotics in the world, and the government’s robot strategy supports a wider rollout within the long-term care insurance scheme. Although the uptakes of care robots have been slow and falling short of stakeholders’ expectations, a degree of optimism was noted for technological leapfrogging after the pandemic, particularly in Hong Kong. Considering the implementation of care robots has only begun in many countries, longitudinal and comparative research is necessary to establish how the characteristics of care systems and policies can promote user-oriented innovation and affect the diffusion of such innovation.

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