Japan's aging population crisis heightens as almost 40,000 died in 2024 so far

Japan's National Police Agency recently released a report in which  it revealed that nearly 40,000 individuals in the country died alone in their homes in the first half of 2024, the BBC reported.

According to the report, almost 4,000 of the dead were not discovered until over a month after their passing while 130 remained undiscovered for an entire year.

With Japan being known for having the "world's oldest population", the police agency's report aims to highlight the increasing issue of a large portion of this population living and dying in isolation, according to the BBC.

The report showed that a total of 37,227 people living alone were found dead at home, with those aged 65 and over accounting for more than 70% of these cases.

Furthermore, approximately 40% of those who died alone at home were found within a day while almost 3,939 bodies were discovered over a month after their death.

Additionally, 130 deaths went unnoticed for at least a year before discovery.

Accounting for 7,498 of the bodies found, the dataset's largest group belonged to 85-year-olds and above, followed by 75-79-year-olds at 5,920. People aged between 70 and 74 accounted for 5,635 of the bodies found.

By 2050, Japan is expected to have 10.8 million elderly citizens living alone and 23.3 million single-person households, the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said earlier this year.

The East Asian country's aging problem has led to issues of loneliness and isolation, prompting its government to introduce a bill aimed at addressing these concerns.

Last year, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan's declining birth rate may jeopardise the functioning of its society.

Additionally, some neighbouring countries are facing similar demographic challenges.

In 2022, China's population fell for the first time since 1961, while South Korea has repeatedly reported the lowest fertility rate in the world.