Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, September 19th (Reporter Jiang Qiaomei) September 20th is Japan's Respect for the Aged Day.
The data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan on the 19th showed that the number of elderly people aged 65 and over in Japan and their proportion in the total population both hit a record high, and the latter continues to top the list in the world.
According to statistics, Japan has 36.4 million elderly people aged 65 and over, an increase of 220,000 from last year.
Among them, there are about 15.83 million men and 20.57 million women.
The elderly population aged 65 and above accounted for 29.1% of the total population, a year-on-year increase of 0.3%.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications also announced the results of the 2020 Labour Force Survey, showing that there were 9.06 million elderly people who were still working last year, an increase for 17 consecutive years and a record high.
According to data released by the United Nations, the proportion of the elderly population in Japan (29.1%) is much higher than that of Italy (23.6%), which ranks second, and Portugal (23.1%), which ranks third.