Photo/Illutration Soccer enthusiasts over the age of 80 compete at Komazawa Olympic Park in Tokyo in April. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The graying of Japanese society seems to have turned a lot grayer.

Figures published by the internal affairs ministry ahead of Sept. 18, Respect-for-the-Aged Day, show that those aged 80 and older for the first time represent 10 percent of the population.

An estimated 36.23 million people in Japan were aged 65 or older as of Sept. 15. The percentage of the total population rose to a record 29.1 percent, up 0.1 point from 2022.

But the number fell for the first time since comparable statistics became available in 1950 because the demographic group now reaching the age of 65 is relatively small.

An estimated 20.51 million women were aged 65 or older, unchanged from 2022 and accounting for 32.1 percent of the female population.

The number of men aged 65 or older fell 10,000 to an estimated 15.72 million, or 26 percent of the male population.

The number of people aged 75 or older increased by 720,000 from 2022 to an estimated 20.05 million and exceeded the 20 million mark for the first time. The age group includes many of the baby-boomers born in 1947 through 1949.

The number of people aged 80 or older rose 270,000 to an estimated 12.59 million, accounting for 10 percent of the total population.

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research projects that those aged 65 or older will account for 34.8 percent of the total population in 2040, when the so-called second-generation baby boomers born in 1971 through 1974 join the group.

As the ranks of elderly people expand, more of them are now working.

In 2022, a record 9.12 million elderly people held jobs, up 30,000 from the previous year and breaking the record for 19 consecutive years, according to the Labor Force Survey.

The elderly accounted for 13.6 percent of all people with jobs, an all-time high.

By age group, a record 50.8 percent of those between 65 and 69 had jobs, as did 33.5 percent of those between 70 and 74, another record.

The work force is aging particularly in industries suffering from a labor shortage.

The agriculture and forestry sector had 1.01 million workers aged 65 or older, or 52.6 percent of all workers in the sector.

In the medical and welfare sector, the number of workers aged 65 or older increased nearly 2.7 times to 1.04 million in 2022 from a decade earlier.

The percentage of elderly workers in the sector more than doubled from 5.5 percent in 2012 to 11.5 percent in 2022.

Social security spending, which represents about one-third of the annual government expenditure, is ballooning as Japanese society ages.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare requested 33.73 trillion yen ($228 billion) in the budget for fiscal 2024, up about 587 billion yen from the initial budget for the current fiscal year.

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