A new record for the number of elderly people in Japan
Last Updated on September 17, 2024 9:12 am
Japan, one of the top economies in the world, currently has 362,500,000 people aged 65 and over. As a percentage, 29.3 percent of the country’s total population is now elderly.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced this information in a statement on Sunday (September 15).
According to the statement, the number of elderly people has never been seen in the history of the country.
It is also said that Japan is currently at the top of 200 countries in the world in terms of elderly people. Besides, countries like Italy, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Germany and Croatia are among the top 10 countries in this list. In each of the countries in the top ten, the percentage of elderly people is more than 20 percent of the total population.
Incidentally, Japan has been suffering from a demographic crisis for the past several years. On the one hand, the rate of working young men and women in the country is decreasing due to the low birth rate, on the other hand, the death rate is decreasing every year due to the improved health care and social security system; And along with that, the number of elderly people is also increasing in the country.
At the beginning of last year, the total population of Japan was 124 million; But due to the low birth rate, the country’s population has decreased by 595,000 in the last one and a half years.
As the number of working young men and women decreases, various companies and institutions in Japan are forced to employ older people. According to official data, in 2023, 9.14 million elderly people were working in various organizations and institutions in Japan. All of them are 65 or older.
In other words, 13.5 percent of Japan’s total workforce is senior citizens. According to the statement of the ministry, the presence of this amount of elderly people in the workplace is also a record.