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© 2023 AFPOne in 10 Japanese are older than 80: gov't data
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© 2023 AFP
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Eppee
But how many are really alive ?
titin
Would rather be 3 meters under at the age of 50 than living an extra 40 years miserably. It’s heartbreaking to see how sad most elderly are in this country.
wallace
I know many over 80s leading full and active lives. Some are still driving heavy farming machinery. Plenty in the gym we use it twice a week.
Fighto!
The elderly who are keeping active, playing sports, joining seniors clubs, partaking in hobbies, socialising and catching up with good friends for regular beers at the izakaya are doing fine.
May their numbers increase!
sakurasuki
Don't forget to pay your pension to make those older people happy and live well. Even when you won't spent your pension age in Japan.
Moonraker
Soon Japan will have a competitive advantage at elderly care so why not take in more and more of the world's elderly? I'm sure actuaries could calculate how much foreigners would have to pay to take advantage. And Japan could internationalise through creating more and more old people's homes and earn foreign currency from the export of elderly care. Just a thought.
YankeeX
Depressing reality of Japan's demographics and it's only gonna get worse.
Alongfortheride
If the Japanese govt does not do something to support not only couples having children but also stopping younger people leaving Japan to work they will end up with a country that has more foreigners in it than Japanese. Making it no longer Japan.
isabelle
Yes, keeping physically and mentally active, and regularly interacting with people, is key. Everyone slows down with age, but you can help yourself by doing a little exercise, meeting people and eating well.
I'm really impressed with the over-80s soccer league. I've watched them play and it's pretty high level:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/02/japan-ageing-footballers-over-80s-league-soccer-for-life-tokyo
elephant200
That was the reason why Japan was falling behind!
wallace
sakurasuki
You forget these people have worked their entire lives and paid their contributions. Where and how they spend their pensions is not your concern.
These are the people who rebuilt the country.
Mr Kipling
YankeeX...
In 2016, Japan became the first country to sell more adult diapers than those for babies.
But from my perspective the oldies in Japan seem much more active than those in the UK.
Meiyouwenti
There’s basically nothing wrong with a society where people can live to a ripe old age. In many developing countries people die younger because of malnutrition and poor hygiene. A growing elderly population could be an economic boon for those who work in the nursery care industry.
Moonraker
Doesn't matter. Whether Japan is any longer Japan depends on what you use to define it. They probably said that kind of thing in the Meiji period and again after WWII. No country is preserved in aspic. But, it will no longer be Japan when everyone dies out, I suppose.
englisc aspyrgend
These people on the whole are the generation that worked in the system of lifetime employment with one company, so why haven’t these companies ensured they have a proper and sufficient pension scheme?
State pension provision is not sufficient to live comfortably on in most countries, so it is incumbent on individuals as well as their employers to make adequate provision during their working life. Pension payments are deferred income you access later at need.
englisc aspyrgend
The picture at the head of the article reminds me of last Wednesday when I went to dinner with 3 friends, none of us are rich but all made provision for the future so we can enjoy a modestly comfortable retirement. I therefor find it hard to understand why older Japanese have not done the same and now are forced to seek employment in their old age (different if it is done of choice).
CaptDingleheimer
The overriding solution the J-gov't can't seem to get their thick heads around:
Get young professionals to move out of the major cities and back to the heartland. Create incentives for companies to allow them to work remotely, and to open offices prefectures outside of the major cities.
Nobody wants to have kids when they live in a shoebox inside a giant pile of shoeboxes, especially in cities where the cost of living is so much higher than in the country.
kaimycahl
What you put in you get back out. The smart old pensioners put into the system they were smart enough to see their futures as the age out. The old pensioners that you see unfortunately they couldn't see their futures or didn't care therefore they are living the life they didn't prepare for or just had bad luck all around. The sad part is the women because they did not work and if they had a husband that did work and they are entitled to his pension then it serves them well but for those who didn't fall in that category they will have to deal with what life fate gives them. Like they say it what you put in you get back out. Japan is not contributing to helping promote healthy families therefore the system for young kids to marry and afford families is on the way out because of no government support. If it continues with the mind set of the way government is doing things, then the mindset of the young will not change. Why bring a child into the world if you can't afford to take care of them and then in some cases when a child is mistakenly born we read about the abuses the child gets on the receiving end and the trauma the mother faces. Sad all around.
kwatt
It seems Japanese people have much longer life than ever. Maybe Japan has healthy food, good medical care for all and good environment for life.
dan
I have worked out that I will get ¥30,000 a month on the standard pension I have paid into here in Japan when I retire.
Being freelance is awful.
I would rather die younger than live a life of poverty after 65 or 67 .
Terrible future if you don't have investments and stock to full back on .
kwatt
I wonder how long you have been working and paying the pension tax to local govt?
Chibakun
Presumably all claiming pensions, must be a massive cost. How Japan doesn't collapse I don't know...
Nihon Tora
If you leave Japan and declare that you are not coming back, you can claim back your pension contributions.
Sven Asai
What a strange advice. Then he has less now due to saving monthly, and later it's in fact similarly insufficient even if it in an overoptimistic scenario would reach double or triple amount.
kwatt
If they did not work 45 years (age 20 to 65), they usually don't get full pension but can get small amount of pension. There are 2 kinds of pensions: standard (basic) pension and kosei pension of working at company. Wife didn't work at all and husband did work for 45 years. Wife can get about half of husband's full pension when he retired at age 65. Pensions depend on how much and how long you pay every month to govt. This is my understanding about pensions.
Peter Neil
It’s still an anachronism.
The system was designed in the days when most were salarymen or high-wage, skilled workers, expected to have their house paid for by retirement and would receive lump sum cash retirement from “their company” that would last the rest of their lives.
Also the days when Japanese saved, saved and saved.
It has to induce panic in the minds of 50-year old English teachers.
itsonlyrocknroll
What a photo, the J 80 plus senior enjoying the spoils of an a joyous economic/political era that provided the lifestyle in old age to raise a cold one to celebrate the modern-day dentistry, so not to have eat their lunch/dinner needing a straw.
To have hip/knee state of the art replacement to fully enjoy a life of mobility to make use of those salaryman pensions.
What lurks behind next door to that rather cosy private booth?
Perhaps the coming generations on parting work, dining on a sit down, once a month luxury of the cheapest beef bowl accompanied with a beer/plus the required number of straws.
Lets not forget young/old man blues
Well, a young man, ain't got nothin' in the world these days
I said a young man ain't got nothin' in the world these days
Well, you know in the old days, when a young man was a strong man
All the people they stepped back, when a young man walked by.
But you know nowadays, it's the old man, who's got all the money.
You know for its vulgarity, it not so far from the truth.
All the young people need to wake up and vote.
kohakuebisu
Japan has the longest active lifespan, the number of years you can expect to be active according however they measure that. Japanese old people are genkier than elsewhere.
The other thing to note is that Japanese life expectancy before WWII was low, under 50 for a man. This suggests to me the reason Japanese have long life expectancy can't be "the traditional Japanese diet" or "genes" or something else that existed pre-war. The most obvious factor is prosperity, probably in tandem with societal factors in Japan's post war society. Some of these will relate to Japanese culture, but anything relating to the state and politics is likely to have some degree of American influence. They set the system up after all.
Alan Harrison
One in 10 Japanese are older than 80: gov't data
Blooming Heck. The Japanese gov't are really quick.
Wayne Johnson
Hopefully, this link will give some of us hope as the week begins, have some faith everyone. Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund is enjoying decent returns since it began addressing the anticipated shortfall some twenty years ago. https://www.gpif.go.jp/en/performance/28637954gpif/2023_1Q_0804_en.pdf
sakurasuki
Yes, they work hard, play hard and drink hard, only miss to have offspring to replace them. That's why they they need to import foreigners from abroad to cover their pension. Many of those foreign workers won't be using their pension in Japan, they won't get benefit as much as they pay like those old Japanese retiree.
Those Japanese old people can continue to live well using sweat from Vietnamesse, Nepalesse workers who contribute to their pension. In the future more and more foreign workers will come to contribute to their pension.
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/japan-to-face-11-million-worker-shortage-by-2040-study-finds
sakurasuki
Yes but not all them, only some of them, they need some of your money right.
Three goals
Then how will the pension system work?
thinkbefore
Looks like you are only contributing about 20 years of payments. To get the full payment you need 40 years of payments. That will give around 67000 yen a month. The other pension scheme doesn't pay that much either. WIth both employer and employee contributions of 40 years you get around 160 000 yen a month. The Japanese pension doesn't pay enough so getting other investments going is necessary if you want to live a comfortable retirement.