Japanese police reports show that in the first half of 2024, nearly 40,000 people died alone at home in Japan.
According to the National Police Agency, nearly 4,000 of them were discovered more than a month after their deaths, and 130 bodies were still missing within a year before they were discovered.
According to the United Nations, Japan currently has the oldest population in the world.
The agency hopes its report will shine a light on the country’s growing problem of large numbers of its aging population living and dying alone.
According to data from the National Police Agency, in the first half of 2024, a total of 37,227 people living alone were found dead at home, of which more than 70% were people over 65 years old.
While an estimated 40 percent of people who died alone in their homes were discovered within a day, the police report found that nearly 3,939 bodies were discovered more than a month after death, including 130 bodies that had not been recovered for at least a year before being discovered. Discover.
There were 7,498 bodies found in the dataset, with the largest group belonging to those aged 85 and over, followed by those aged 75-79 with 5,920 bodies. 5,635 of the bodies found were between the ages of 70 and 74.
According to Japanese public television network NHK, police agencies will provide their findings to a government panel investigating the unattended deaths.
Earlier this year, Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said the number of elderly people (aged 65 and over) living alone is expected to reach 10.8 million by 2050.
The total number of single-person households is expected to reach 23.3 million in the same year.
In April, the Japanese government proposed a bill to address decades of loneliness and isolation in the country, driven in part by its aging population.
Japan has long tried to cope with its aging and declining population, but the shift is increasingly difficult for the country to cope with.
Last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated The country is on the verge of not being able to function as a society Because its birth rate continues to decline.
Some neighboring countries face similar demographic challenges.
2022, China’s population declines for first time since 1961although South Korea has repeatedly reported that its fertility rate is the lowest in the world.
