The median age of the population in Japan has steadily been increasing since 1950 and is projected to be around 47.7 years old in 2020. As of 2021, the median age of Japan is the second highest in the world, behind the Principality of Monaco. The elderly in Japan An improved quality of life and regular health checks are just two reasons why Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. The life expectancy from birth in Japan improved significantly after World War II, rising 20 years in the decade between 1945 and 1955. As life expectancy continues to increase, Japan expects difficulties caring for the older generation in the future. Shortages in the service sector are already a major concern, with demand for nurses and care workers increasing. Fertility and birth rates The fertility rate among Japan’s population has been around 1.4 children per woman since 2010. Apart from a small baby boom in the early seventies, the crude birth rate of Japan has been declining since 1950 and is expected to be as low as 7.5 births per thousand people in 2020. With falling birth rates and such a large share of its inhabitants reaching their later years, Japan’s total population is expected to continue declining.

In 2022, the average life expectancy of women in Japan was approximately 87.1 years, whereas the life expectancy of men reached around 81.1 years. The average life expectancy of both men and women in Japan indicated a decrease for two consecutive years. Aging workforce Japan has one of the highest proportions of senior citizens worldwide, with almost 30 percent of the country’s population aged 65 years and older. The growing average life expectancy and declining fertility rates led to this demographic shift. To secure the nation's workforce despite the aging population, the Japanese government amended the Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons in 2021 and requested Japanese enterprises to raise the retirement age to 70 for employees who wish to continue working after turning 60 or 65. Causes of death The leading causes of death in Japan are malignant neoplasms, heart diseases, and cerebrovascular diseases. Lung cancer is the most mortal cancer site among Japanese men and women, but its mortality risk has declined from the 1990s onward. This development can be partially attributed to the downward trend in tobacco consumption. Since peaking in the 1970s, tobacco consumption in Japan has steadily declined, noticeable from the continuous decrease in the cigarette industry’s annual sales volume growth. Apart from a growing awareness regarding health risks, this downward movement can be explained by a tightening of prefectural no-smoking policies in the streets, many restaurants, and public places in general.

Over the last decade, Japan’s population has aged more and more, to the point where more than a quarter of Japanese were 65 years and older in 2022. Population growth has stopped and even reversed, since it’s been in the red for several years now.

It’s getting old

With almost 30 percent of its population being elderly inhabitants, Japan is considered the “oldest” country in the world today. Japan boasts a high life expectancy, in fact, the Japanese tend to live longer than the average human worldwide. The increase of the aging population is accompanied by a decrease of the total population caused by a sinking birth rate. Japan’s fertility rate has been below the replacement rate for many decades now, mostly due to economic uncertainty and thus a decreasing number of marriages.

Are the Japanese invincible?

There is no real mystery surrounding the ripe old age of so many Japanese. Their high average age is very likely due to high healthcare standards, nutrition, and an overall high standard of living – all of which could be adopted by other industrial nations as well. But with high age comes less capacity, and Japan’s future enemy might not be an early death, but rather a struggling social network.

The mean age of childbearing in Japan was estimated at around 31.4 years in 2021, slightly down from the previous year. Within the Asian region, Japan showed one of the highest mean age of childbearing.

Retirement Age Men in Japan increased to 65 Years in 2025 from 64 Years in 2024. This dataset provides - Japan Retirement Age Men - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Japan JP: Population: Female: Ages 25-29: % of Female Population data was reported at 4.844 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 4.936 % for 2016. Japan JP: Population: Female: Ages 25-29: % of Female Population data is updated yearly, averaging 6.968 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 9.438 % in 1974 and a record low of 4.844 % in 2017. Japan JP: Population: Female: Ages 25-29: % of Female Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Japan – Table JP.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Female population between the ages 25 to 29 as a percentage of the total female population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; ;

In 2023, the average age of persons engaged in farming in Japan stood at 68.7 years. The figure increased significantly throughout the past decade, compared to 66.2 years in 2010. Japan's agricultural workforce is shrinking Japan's aging population and low birth rate have produced a labor shortage in many industries. Since agricultural work is physically demanding and barely profitable and few young people are willing to inherit their parent's farm or enter the sector as newcomers, the number of commercial farm households consequently continues to decrease. The younger generations often prefer to move to metropolitan areas which provide work, convenience, and a modern lifestyle. Further obstacles to the Japanese agricultural sector Its geography complicates agriculture in Japan as the island nation regularly suffers from natural disasters. Typhoons, earthquakes, and tsunamis cause high damage costs to the agriculture, forestry, and fishery industry every year.Furthermore, only about 20 percent of the mountainous archipelago is suitable for cultivation, and the area of cultivated land keeps shrinking as more and more land is used for housing.

Graph and download economic data for Infra-Annual Labor Statistics: Working-Age Population Total: From 15 to 64 Years for Japan (LFWA64TTJPM647S) from Jan 1970 to Jan 2025 about working-age, 15 to 64 years, Japan, and population.

As of March 31, 2024, passenger cars in Japan had an average age of approximately 9.34 years. Over the past decade, the average age of passenger cars increased steadily, hinting at improved durability of vehicles owned in Japan. The Japanese automobile landscape The Japanese automotive industry developed rapidly during the 'economic miracle' post-World War II, making the country one of the largest motor vehicle producers in the world. While international competition within the automobile sector is tight, Japanese engineering is highly valued in its home market and abroad. Domestically produced cars are primarily exported to North America, whereas imported passenger cars arrive predominantly from Europe, followed by imports from Africa and other Asian regions. Domestic passenger car usage Japan’s usage rate of passenger cars was much higher among car owners from rural regions compared to those living in the country’s metropolitan areas, such as Tokyo or Osaka. Due to rising environmental awareness, green vehicle technologies, and car-sharing services that started to pick up in Japan, a new approach to vehicle usage and purchase behavior has likely been sparked.

Life expectancy in Japan was 36.4 in the year 1860, and over the course of the next 160 years, it is expected to have increased to 84.4, which is the second highest in the world (after Monaco). Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Japan's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were a result of the Spanish Flu in the 1910s, the Second World War in the 1940s, and the sharp increase was due to the high rate of industrialization and economic prosperity in Japan, in the mid-twentieth century.

Retirement Age Women in Japan increased to 65 Years in 2025 from 64 Years in 2024. This dataset provides - Japan Retirement Age Women - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

JP: Population: as % of Total: Female: Aged 0-14 data was reported at 12.256 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 12.304 % for 2016. JP: Population: as % of Total: Female: Aged 0-14 data is updated yearly, averaging 18.671 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 29.143 % in 1960 and a record low of 12.256 % in 2017. JP: Population: as % of Total: Female: Aged 0-14 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Japan – Table JP.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Female population between the ages 0 to 14 as a percentage of the total female population. Population is based on the de facto definition of population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; Weighted average; Relevance to gender indicator: Knowing how many girls, adolescents and women there are in a population helps a country in determining its provision of services.

As of March 31, 2024, buses in Japan had an average age of approximately 12.96 years, increasing to a record age. A decade earlier, the average had been 11.76 years.

Japan JP: School Enrollment: Primary: % Gross data was reported at 98.800 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 99.539 % for 2014. Japan JP: School Enrollment: Primary: % Gross data is updated yearly, averaging 99.316 % from Dec 1971 (Median) to 2015, with 45 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 101.839 % in 2011 and a record low of 96.698 % in 1974. Japan JP: School Enrollment: Primary: % Gross data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Japan – Table JP.World Bank: Education Statistics. Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Primary education provides children with basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills along with an elementary understanding of such subjects as history, geography, natural science, social science, art, and music.; ; UNESCO Institute for Statistics; Weighted average; Each economy is classified based on the classification of World Bank Group's fiscal year 2018 (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018).

In 2022, the life expectancy of men at birth in Japan remained nearly unchanged at around 81.05 years. Still, 2022 marked the second consecutive decline of the life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth refers to the number of years the average newborn is expected to live, providing that mortality patterns at the time of birth do not change thereafter.Find more statistics on other topics about Japan with key insights such as crude birth rate, death rate, and total fertility rate.

Japan JP: Suicide Mortality Rate: Female data was reported at 11.400 NA in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 11.800 NA for 2015. Japan JP: Suicide Mortality Rate: Female data is updated yearly, averaging 13.600 NA from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 14.100 NA in 2010 and a record low of 11.400 NA in 2016. Japan JP: Suicide Mortality Rate: Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Japan – Table JP.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Suicide mortality rate is the number of suicide deaths in a year per 100,000 population. Crude suicide rate (not age-adjusted).; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (http://apps.who.int/ghodata/).; Weighted average;

Abbreviations in this text

NPP: Net Primary Production, average of stand ages 36-40

GCM: Global Climate Model

HT: Historical Trend, average of five years 1996-2000

FP2050: Future Prediction, average of five years 2046-2050

FP2100: Future Prediction, average of five years 2096-2100 (except for a GCM HadGEM2-ES of 2095-2099)

Description

The data is prepared as four files in tab-delimited text format or ten netcdf files in a zip file. The annual NPP of cedar plantations under current and future climates are calculated in 196928 meshes in Japan. The climate scenarios used are owned and distributed by the third party (National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Japan). For the methodology on modeling, parameterization and nation-wide calculation, please check the paper below.

Reference

Toriyama J, Hashimoto S, Osone Y, Yamashita N, Tsurita T, Shimizu T, Saitoh TM, Sawano S, Lehtonen A, Ishizuka S (2021) Estimating spatial variation in the effects of climate change on the net primary production of Japanese cedar plantations based on modeled carbon dynamics. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0247165. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247165

List of variables in text files

site.txt (6.8 MB)

mesh: Number of third-mesh order in the Japanese grid square system

lat: Latitude (degree) of center point of third-mesh order

long: Longitude (degree) of center point of third-mesh order

block: Block number in Toriyama et al. (2021), 1, 2 and 3 for SW, CT and NW, respectively

pref: Prefecture number in the Japanese administrative system

npp_2000.txt (8.7 MB)

mesh: Number of third-mesh order in the Japanese grid square system

npp_2000_cgcm: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in HT, MRI-CGCM3

npp_2000_csiro: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in HT, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0

npp_2000_gfdl: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in HT, GFDL-CM3

npp_2000_hadgem: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in HT, HadGEM2-ES

npp_2000_miroc: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in HT, MIROC5

npp_2050.txt (15.4 MB)

mesh: Number of third-mesh order in the Japanese grid square system

npp_rcp26_2050_cgcm: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP2.6, MRI-CGCM3

npp_rcp26_2050_csiro: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP2.6, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0

npp_rcp26_2050_gfdl: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP2.6, GFDL-CM3

npp_rcp26_2050_hadgem: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP2.6, HadGEM2-ES

npp_rcp26_2050_miroc: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP2.6, MIROC5

npp_rcp85_2050_cgcm: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP8.5, MRI-CGCM3

npp_rcp85_2050_csiro: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP8.5, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0

npp_rcp85_2050_gfdl: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP8.5, GFDL-CM3

npp_rcp85_2050_hadgem: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP8.5, HadGEM2-ES

npp_rcp85_2050_miroc: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2050, RCP8.5, MIROC5

npp_2100.txt (15.4 MB)

mesh: Number of third-mesh order in the Japanese grid square system

npp_rcp26_2100_cgcm: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP2.6, MRI-CGCM3

npp_rcp26_2100_csiro: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP2.6, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0

npp_rcp26_2100_gfdl: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP2.6, GFDL-CM3

npp_rcp26_2100_hadgem: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP2.6, HadGEM2-ES

npp_rcp26_2100_miroc: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP2.6, MIROC5

npp_rcp85_2100_cgcm: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP8.5, MRI-CGCM3

npp_rcp85_2100_csiro: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP8.5, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0

npp_rcp85_2100_gfdl: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP8.5, GFDL-CM3

npp_rcp85_2100_hadgem: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP8.5, HadGEM2-ES

npp_rcp85_2100_miroc: Annual NPP (kgC m-2 year-1) in FP2100, RCP8.5, MIROC5

npp_netcdf.zip (594 MB)

The 10 files in netcdf format are compiled in a zip file for NPP data of different RCP scenarios and GCMs.

Please check the content of each file by following command.

ncdump -h filename

summary_map.zip (5.8 MB)

The 20 files in png format are compiled in a zip file for maps of NPP and its change. The maps were created using the Generic Mapping Tools version 5 (http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/). The average values of five GCMs are used for mapping.

Acknowledgement

This dataset was funded by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council in Japan, under the project “Research on adaptation to climate change for agriculture, forestry and fisheries”.

This dataset is about book subjects and is filtered where the books includes Village Japan : everyday life in a rural Japanese community, featuring 10 columns including authors, average publication date, book publishers, book subject, and books. The preview is ordered by number of books (descending).

As of March 31, 2024, trucks in Japan had an average age of approximately 11.98 years, continuously increasing for 30 years to a record high. A decade earlier, the average amounted to 11.09 years.

A genome-wide eQTL analysis was performed in whole blood samples collected from 76 Japanese subjects. RNA microarray analysis was performed for 3 independent samples that were genotyped in a genome-wide scan. The correlations between the genotypes of 534,404 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the expression levels of 30,465 probes were examined for each sample. The SNP-probe pairs with combined correlation coefficients of all 3 samples corresponding to P < 3.10 × 10-12 (i.e., Bonferroni-corrected P < 0.05) were considered significant. SNP-probe pairs with a high likelihood of cross-hybridization and SNP-in-probe effects were excluded to exclude false positive results. We identified 102 cis-acting and 5 trans-acting eQTL regions. The cis-eQTL regions were widely distributed both upstream and downstream of the gene, as well as within the gene. RNA microarray data obtained from 3 independent samples originally recruited for other studies investigating the gene expression levels in psychiatric disorders were used in the present study. For the purpose of the present analyses, genomic DNA was collected from 24 subjects (13 men and 11 women, mean age [SD] = 39.9 [7.6] years) in sample 1, 24 subjects in sample 2 (12 men and 12 women, 34.1 [11.5] years), and 28 subjects (14 men and 14 women, 41.4 [11.8] years) in sample 3. Some of the subjects had depressive symptoms, but all were physically healthy and without clinically significant systemic disease (e.g., malignant disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, renal failure, or endocrine disorders). Subjects were recruited from the outpatient clinic of the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, through advertisements in free local information magazines or through our website announcement. All the subjects were biologically unrelated Japanese individuals who resided in the same geographical area (western Tokyo). The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan. Written informed consent was obtained from every subject after the study was explained to them. Venous blood was collected between 1100 and 1200 h in PAXgene tubes (Qiagen, Valencia) from each subject and was incubated at room temperature for 24 h for RNA stabilization. RNA was extracted from whole blood according to the manufacturer’s guidelines by using the PAXgene Blood RNA System Kit (PreAnalytix GmbH, Hombrechtikon, Switzerland). The RNA was quantified by optical density readings at A260nm by using the NanoDrop ND-1000 (Thermo Scientific, Rockford). Gene expression analysis was performed using Agilent Human Genome 4 × 44 K arrays (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara). Raw signal data for each of the 3 independent samples were analyzed separately by the GeneSpring GX software (Agilent Technologies). Data were filtered according to the expression level for quality control to eliminate genes that were below the 20th percentile threshold. The expression value of each gene was normalized to the median expression value of all genes in each chip. A total of 30,465 probes were included in the analysis. Genomic DNA was obtained from venous blood samples. Genotyping was performed by Riken Genesis (Yokohama, Japan) using the Illumina HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChip (Illumina, Inc., San Diego). A total of 713,495 autosomal SNPs were assessed for quality using the PLINK v1.07 software. All SNPs with a call rate below 95%, a deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium at an error level of P < 0.001, or a minor allele frequency of less than 10% were excluded. The remaining 534,404 SNPs were used for further analysis.