Photo/Illutration A senior citizen walks along the grounds of the Takashimadaira housing complex in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A dire trend in graying Japan is expected to worsen over the coming decades, with close to half of all households forecast to have only one member living alone in 2050. 

That prediction was released on April 12 by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

While the estimate was that 44.3 percent of households in 2050 would be a single member, the pace at which such households increases will accelerate over the 30-year period from 2020.

Over that period, the ratio of one-person households is expected to rise by 6 percentage points.

The institute makes such estimates of household numbers once every five years and the latest is based on the 2020 census. Estimates were made of the number of households from 2020 until 2050.

There were 55.7 million households of all kinds in 2020 and that number is expected to increase to 57.73 million in 2030.

But that will be the peak and the numbers are expected to decline from then.

While the percentage of single-member households was 38 percent in 2020, it is expected to increase by 6.3 percentage points by 2050.

In 2033, the average number of members in a household is expected to fall under two for the first time.

In the last projection made in 2018, the percentage of single-member households was 37.9 percent in 2030 and 39.3 percent in 2040.

But in the latest estimate, the percentages were 41.6 percent for 2030 and 43.5 percent in 2040, indicating the number of single-member households will increase at a faster pace.

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