A declining birthrate and an aging population are changing the composition of Japanese households. A 2007 survey by the health and welfare ministry shows that the percentage of households comprising elderly people alone has risen while the size of the average household has shrunk. The trend points to the need for local governments and people to make efforts to prevent the isolation of the elderly.
As of June 7, 2007, there were about 48.027 million households. Of them, 31.3 percent were composed of parents and an unmarried child or children, 25 percent were composed of one person, and 22.1 percent were made up of married couples alone. The size of an average household has shrunk from 3.22 people in 1986 to 2.63 in 2007.
The percentage of households composed solely of people aged 65 or over rose from 6.3 percent in 1986 to 18.8 percent in 2007. Of these households, 48.7 percent were composed of couples and 48 percent were single-member households. Among people receiving nursing care, 25 percent were receiving it from spouses, 17.9 percent from their children, and 14.3 percent from the spouses of their children — all living in the same household.