Saturday, September 23, 2017

Centenarians in Japan

Monday was a national holiday in Japan - Respect for the Aged Day.  I love the holidays celebrated in Japan!  


There are now a record 67,824 centenarians in Japan, up by 2,132 from a year ago.  The Japanese welfare ministry says the growing numbers are due to greater health consciousness and medical advances.  When information on the number of centenarians in Japan was first collected in 1963, there were only 153.


Women now account for 87.9 percent of the total. Japan's oldest woman is Nabi Tajima, 117, living in Kagoshima Prefecture. Now she is also the oldest person in the world.  The oldest man in Japan is Masazo Nonaka, 112, living in Hokkaido Prefecture. Currently life expectancy for women in Japan is 87.14 years and 80.98 years for men.  


Previously, 100 year olds in Japan were given cups of pure silver by the Prime Minister, but last year the government decided to switch to silver-plated cups in order to save money. 


Is there a national holiday for the elderly where you live?


5 comments:

kiwikid said...

What a great idea, nothing here like that, that I know of.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pamela,wow thats amazing such a big jump in numbers,which is good,if someone reaches 100 here the queen sends them a letter xx

Queeniepatch said...

In my native Sweden? NO WAY!! I too, love the Japanese national holidays, many of them celebrate 'every day things' like the sea, sports or elderly people, and not just Foundation days or Constitution day and the like.

Anna van Schurman said...

I don't think we celebrate the aged, but this is an astounding number of centenarians. My grandmothers--95 and 96--are getting there, but I'm pretty sure neither really wants to. Unfortunately for them, neither has any real health issues (blindness and bad knees aren't fatal).

Leonore Winterer said...

I read an article a while back about many of the Japanese centenarians being 'fake', because people just never reported their relatives death in order to keep collecting their social benefits. I think they wanted to investigate and adjust the number accordingly - I wonder if they ever did that?