The estimated number of people aged 65 or older in Japan stands at 36.19 million as of Monday, falling by 50,000 from a year before, the internal affairs ministry said Sunday.
The estimate, released ahead of Respect for the Aged Day on Monday, a national holiday, decreased for the first time in two years but accounted for a record 29.4% of the country's total population, up 0.1 percentage point.
According to the ministry, the population decrease is attributed to factors such as the number of deaths among those aged 65 or over exceeding the number of people newly reaching 65.
Older adult men are estimated to come to 15.68 million, making up 26.2% of the total male population, and the estimated number of older adult women stands at 20.51 million, accounting for 32.4% of the overall female population.
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