Tokyo, Sep 18 (EFE).- Ten percent of Japan’s population is over 80 years old and the country has once again shattered its record number of centenarians with more than 92,000, according to government data published ahead of Monday’s of Respect for the Aged Day.
Elderly people eat ice creams on a street in Tokyo, Japan, 17 September 2013. EPA-EFE FILE/KIYOSHI OTA
As of Sep. 15 there were some 12.69 million people in Japan aged 80 or over, hitting one tenth of the total for the first time, according to Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on Sunday.
An elderly man sits on the wharf in Tomonoura city, Hiroshima prefecture, Japan, 25 October 2017. EPA-EFE FILE/EVERETT KENNEDY BROWN
Some 36.23 million people residing in the country are 65 years old or older, which represents 29.1 percent of the population, an increase of 0.1 percent year-on-year.
Of that figure, around 56.6 percent are women (20.51 million or 32.1 percent of the female population of the entire country), while 15.72 million men are over 65 years of age – 26 percent of the male population of the archipelago.
Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates that those over 65 years of age will represent 34.8 percent of the Japanese population by 2040.
The Asian country also once again shattered its record of centenarians, which is estimated at around 92,139, of which 88.5 percent are women, according to data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Welfare.
That of 2023 is the 53rd consecutive annual increase in this figure and shows the rapid aging of the population, in which there are 73.74 centenarians per 100,000 inhabitants.
The oldest person in Japan is a woman – Fusa Tatsumi, who is 116 years old and lives in Osaka prefecture.
When record keeping began in 1963 there were 153 centenarians in Japan. In 1981 it exceeded 1,000 and in 1998 it surpassed 10,000, an increase in longevity that experts attribute mainly to the development of medical technologies and treatments.
In the workforce, people aged 65 or over represented around 13.6 percent of the total.
According to government estimates, 50.8 percent of people between 65 and 69 years old continue to work, as well as 33.5 percent of those between 70 and 74 years old.
Workplace aging is especially evident in the Japanese agricultural sector, where 52.5 percent of workers have already turned 65 years old. EFE mra/tw
