TOKYO (AFP): The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000 – almost 90% of them women, according to government data. The figures highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept.
1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 women and 11,161 men, the Health Ministry said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.
3% of Japan’s population. The proportion puts Japan at the top of a list of 200 countries and regions with a population of over 100,000 people, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. Japan is currently home to the world’s oldest living person, Tomiko Itooka, who was born on May 23, 1908, and is 116 years old, according to the U.
S.-based Gerontology Research Group. The previous record-holder, Maria Branyas Morera, died last month in Spain at 117.
Itooka lives in a nursing home in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan, the ministry said. Japan’s aging crisis worsens with 95,119 centenarians, nearly 90% women, driving up medical costs and shrinking the workforce. She often says “thank you” to the nursing home staff and expresses nostalgia about her hometown, the ministry said.
“I have no idea at all about what’s the secret of my long life,” Japan’s oldest man, Kiyotaka Mizu.