Can Japan handle 100 thousand centenarians?

Peter de WaardOctober 13, 202216:55

It could be the quality of care. Or a healthier lifestyle, especially in terms of food habits. Or the great respect for the elderly. Or a combination of all these factors.

But Japan is heading for a record number of more than 100 thousand centenarians. The country now has 90,562 people over 100 years old. It is striking that 80,161 (88 percent) of them are female.

The increase is spectacular for a country that was completely impoverished by the war in the early 1960s and has barely grown since the late 1980s. In 1963 there were only 153 people over the age of 100 in Japan, in 1981 there were more than a thousand for the first time, in 1998 10 thousand, in 2012 50 thousand and now more than 90 thousand. For every 100 thousand inhabitants in the country, there are 72 people who have passed the age of 100. In the Netherlands there are ten.

Japan recently celebrated its Day of Respect for the Elderly, a national holiday that has been held on the third Monday of September every year since 2003. The intention is that young people visit the elderly that day, prepare lunches or dinners and pamper them for a while. People who turn one hundred years old also receive a congratulatory letter and a silver cup from the Japanese government.

Perhaps it stimulates the Japanese to grow old this way. Incidentally, it is even better for the elderly on three other islands. These are the Caribbean palm islands of Guadaloupe, Martinique and Barbabos, where as a percentage of the population, even more people are 100 years or older. On those islands, the difference between male and female centenarians is also much smaller than in Japan. But the islands are not that representative given their small population. In addition, not all Caribbean islands do so well. Aruba has only four centenarians for every 100,000 inhabitants.

The Japanese consider themselves lucky that they live this long on average. But it creates a problem. A period of hyper-aging is approaching, also because Japan has an unprecedentedly low birth rate. At the end of last year, 36.8 million people over 65 lived in Japan. That is already 30 percent of the population. And that will increase to almost 40 percent in the next decade.

Of the 36.8 million over-65s, ten million already have a regular job, especially in the retail sector, the catering industry and the care sector. And another three million Japanese over the age of 65 have irregular jobs. Or 13.6 percent of the jobs in Japan are filled by a person over 65.

It is necessary to keep the healthcare system affordable and manned. Japan has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. There is a national health insurance with income-related premiums. But staff members are hard to find. Robotization is a godsend, as is admitting foreign healthcare personnel.

But to keep the health care system afloat, healthy people over 65 will have to step in until the centenarians take care of the 110-year-olds in the future.

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