While women have long been the main caregivers for elderly parents in Japan, the country's rapidly aging population, coupled with the prevalence of smaller families in recent generations, has resulted in more men taking on the responsibility.
Among them are a growing number of men in management positions who in the past may have relied on their wives to do the job, but who no longer have the option due to their spouses' own work or family care commitments.
Masatoshi Bamba, 53, a municipal government section chief in Osaka Prefecture, travels more than an hour each way to visit his parents in Kyoto every weekend.