Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper

Japan’s shift toward a super-aged society is being fueled by a combination of demographic factors. These include declining marriage and fertility rates and increases in life expectancy enabled by advances in medical science and improved nutrition a...

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Main Author: Yuen, Belinda
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099620005252230269/P172017079371c0860ae850c8c42429c031
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37478
id okr-10986-37478
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-374782022-05-28T05:10:44Z Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper Yuen, Belinda SUPER-AGED SOCIETY DECLINING FERTILITY RATE LIFE EXPECTANCY INCREASE SMALL HOUSEHOLDS NUCLEAR HOUSEHOLDS LABOR FORCE SHORTAGE AGING IN PLACE HEALTHING AGING ELDERLY HOUSING GERIATRIC HEALTH Japan’s shift toward a super-aged society is being fueled by a combination of demographic factors. These include declining marriage and fertility rates and increases in life expectancy enabled by advances in medical science and improved nutrition and living conditions. Another trend is the rise in the number of older single-person or couple households as a result of various lifestyle and demographic changes, including a general decrease in average household size, the rise of smaller nuclear households, and the growing number of people who remain unmarried. The socioeconomic challenges arising from an aging and declining population have been at the forefront of Japan’s political and public policy discourse since the rapid population aging trend was first recognized in the 1980s. Central to the aging population challenge is the decline in working-age population, which could lead to labor force shortages and lower economic growth. Recognition of these growing challenges has engendered a shift in aging policy toward aging in place and healthy aging, with older persons encouraged to remain active and in their existing communities for as long as possible. The idea is not only to improve the well-being of older persons and their quality of life, but also to reduce the burden on the state of providing for the burgeoning health and welfare needs of a super-aged population. Japan has implemented several policies, guidelines, and programs to promote healthy aging. Japanese authorities and cities are implementing several projects in housing and homebased care to facilitate aging in place. Some of these projects are reviewed in this report. 2022-05-27T13:47:13Z 2022-05-27T13:47:13Z 2022 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099620005252230269/P172017079371c0860ae850c8c42429c031 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37478 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Report Publications & Research Japan
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic SUPER-AGED SOCIETY
DECLINING FERTILITY RATE
LIFE EXPECTANCY INCREASE
SMALL HOUSEHOLDS
NUCLEAR HOUSEHOLDS
LABOR FORCE SHORTAGE
AGING IN PLACE
HEALTHING AGING
ELDERLY HOUSING
GERIATRIC HEALTH
spellingShingle SUPER-AGED SOCIETY
DECLINING FERTILITY RATE
LIFE EXPECTANCY INCREASE
SMALL HOUSEHOLDS
NUCLEAR HOUSEHOLDS
LABOR FORCE SHORTAGE
AGING IN PLACE
HEALTHING AGING
ELDERLY HOUSING
GERIATRIC HEALTH
Yuen, Belinda
Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
geographic_facet Japan
description Japan’s shift toward a super-aged society is being fueled by a combination of demographic factors. These include declining marriage and fertility rates and increases in life expectancy enabled by advances in medical science and improved nutrition and living conditions. Another trend is the rise in the number of older single-person or couple households as a result of various lifestyle and demographic changes, including a general decrease in average household size, the rise of smaller nuclear households, and the growing number of people who remain unmarried. The socioeconomic challenges arising from an aging and declining population have been at the forefront of Japan’s political and public policy discourse since the rapid population aging trend was first recognized in the 1980s. Central to the aging population challenge is the decline in working-age population, which could lead to labor force shortages and lower economic growth. Recognition of these growing challenges has engendered a shift in aging policy toward aging in place and healthy aging, with older persons encouraged to remain active and in their existing communities for as long as possible. The idea is not only to improve the well-being of older persons and their quality of life, but also to reduce the burden on the state of providing for the burgeoning health and welfare needs of a super-aged population. Japan has implemented several policies, guidelines, and programs to promote healthy aging. Japanese authorities and cities are implementing several projects in housing and homebased care to facilitate aging in place. Some of these projects are reviewed in this report.
format Report
author Yuen, Belinda
author_facet Yuen, Belinda
author_sort Yuen, Belinda
title Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
title_short Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
title_full Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
title_fullStr Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
title_full_unstemmed Silver Hues - Building Age-Ready Cities : Japan Background Paper
title_sort silver hues - building age-ready cities : japan background paper
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2022
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099620005252230269/P172017079371c0860ae850c8c42429c031
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37478
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