It’s official; China has now passed Japan as the second largest economy on earth, with the U.S. slated to fall to China sometime between 2030 and 2050. Japan has been experiencing a lot of fallen records of late, but their long-lasting economic malaise – one that began long before the current recession (noted in my August 12th blog) – appears to be quite secure for the foreseeable future. There’s another record that might – you should pardon the expression – die an ugly death as well: Japan’s claim to a disproportionate number of centenarians (folks who live past 100) because of their claim to healthy living habits and a fabulous diet (not the their parliament, silly!).
Tokyo alone claimed to have over 3,000 residents who have lived past the century mark. Wow! Except… well… maybe not. The New York Times (August 14th) reports that things are not always what the records reflect: “[P]olice found the body of a man thought to be one of Japan’s oldest, at 111 years, mummified in his bed, dead for more than three decades. His daughter, now 81, hid his death to continue collecting his monthly pension payments, the police said.” Ewwww! At least when papa turned over in his grave, he did so on a comfortable mattress (futon?)!
The Times continues, noting the reaction of authorities to the above discovery: “Alarmed, local governments began sending teams to check on other elderly residents. What they found so far has been anything but encouraging… A woman thought to be Tokyo’s oldest, who would be 113, was last seen in the 1980s. Another woman, who would be the oldest in the world at 125, is also missing, and probably has been for a long time. When city officials tried to visit her at her registered address, they discovered that the site had been turned into a city park, in 1981… To date, the authorities have been unable to find more than 281 Japanese who had been listed in records as 100 years old or older. Facing a growing public outcry, the country’s health minister, Akira Nagatsuma, said officials would meet with every person listed as 110 or older to verify that they are alive…” The Times.
The graying of Japan is simply adding to the burdens of a society in which the population (and obviously the birthrate) is severely shrinking, placing a greater burden on the older citizens and creating a crushing contraction on business growth as numbers for both workers and consumers fall precipitously. The BBC – reporting back on December 22, 2005 – noted that “Japan's population of 128 million is projected to fall to 100 million by 2050 if current trends continue.” And current trends are definitely continuing. The missing centenarians are merely a symptom of a greater problem: “Some health experts say these cases reflect strains in a society that expects children to care for their parents, instead of placing them in care facilities. They point out that longer life spans mean that children are called upon to take care of their elderly parents at a time when the children are reaching their 70s and are possibly in need of care themselves.
“In at least some of the cases, local officials have said, an aged parent disappeared after leaving home under murky circumstances. Experts say that the parents appeared to have suffered from dementia or some other condition that made their care too demanding, and the overburdened family members simply gave up, failing to chase after the elderly people or report their disappearance to the police.” The Times. As population trends in many Western countries seems to follow suit, this notion of fewer young (working) people around to care for an increase in the proportion of seniors is a recurring theme that will haunt government planners for decades. As our Social Security system is now 75 years old, the fund has begun to draw down more than it earns, threatening to bankrupt the present system in a quarter of a century. The world, she is changing at every level.
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