Women represent 88% of the total
The number of centenaries in Japan reached a new record, exceeding 99,000 individuals for the first time, the Japanese government said days before the day of respect for the elderly, celebrated next Monday.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, Work and Welfare of the Asian country, updated numbers point to a record of 99,763 people 100 years or older in the archipelago, an increase of 4,644 individuals compared to the previous year, and this number that has not stopped growing in the last 55 years.
Women represent 88% of the total, with 87,784 people, while the number of centenary men is 11,979.
Japan’s oldest person is Shigeko Kagawa, a 114 -year -old woman from the city of Yamatokoriyama, in Nara City Hall (West), and the sixth oldest person in the world, according to Gerontology Research Group, an organization that maintains a global centenary record.
The oldest man in the Asian country is 111 -year -old Kiyotaka Mizuno, resident in the city of Iwata, in Shizuoka (Center).
Japan reached an average of 80.58 centenaries per 100,000 inhabitants. By city halls, Shimane, in the west of the country, leads the concentration list, with an average of 168.69 centenaries per 100,000 residents.
When these data began to be collected in 1963, there were 153 centenaries in Japan. In 1981, this number surpassed the thousand and, in 1998, the 10,000, an increase in longevity that experts attribute mainly to the development of medical technologies and treatments.
According to the country’s Ministry of Health, the Japanese life expectancy is 87.13 years for women and 81.09 years for men.
