A government white paper on the graying of the population says Japan has become a "full-scale gray society." As of Oct. 1, people aged 75 or over numbered a record 12.7 million — up 540,000 from a year earlier — and accounted for a record 9.9 percent of the nation's population, a 0.4 point increase from the year before. Roughly one of every 10 Japanese is in this age group.
The number of people aged 65 or over increased by 860,000 to a record 27.46 million, accounting for 21.5 percent of the population, up 0.7 percentage point from a year earlier.
A government report in early May said the number of children in Japan has been declining for 27 years. It estimated that the number of children aged 14 or younger as of April 1 at 17.25 million or just 13.5 percent of the population. While the government should take steps that will encourage people to have more children, it also should adopt measures that lessen elderly people's worries about old age and help them feel that life is worth living.