Elderly people aged 75 or older will increase in number in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, which is bustling with high-rise apartment buildings, at a steeper rate than anywhere else in Japan through 2050.

At the same time, the corresponding number will drop at the fastest rate in the mountainous village of Nanmoku, Gunma Prefecture, according to projections.

The estimates given by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) forecast a major change in the geographical pattern of Japan’s aging population.

One expert called for a need to develop, for example, institutional arrangements for providing elderly nursing care in urban areas.

TOKYO WARD BRACES TO FACE AGING POPULATION

The Olympic and Paralympic village for the Tokyo Games, held in 2021, has been remade into an apartment house complex called Harumi Flag, in the Harumi waterfront district of the capital’s Chuo Ward.

Occupants began moving into the units in January and a shopping complex entered into full operation in March.

A new elementary school and a new junior high school were also opened in the district in April.

Although the neighborhood is currently bustling with a growing population, the IPSS projections say the Tokyo ward, including this district, will see a sharp rise in the aging population.  

The estimates, which were released late last year, predict the population size of Chuo Ward’s residents aged 75 or older, with the 2020 level set at 100, will rise to 119.9 in 2025, 127.1 in 2030, 160.3 in 2040, 194.9 in 2045 and 236.2 in 2050.

That makes Chuo Ward the national leader, in terms of the corresponding growth rate for the period from 2020 through 2050, among all the 1,884 areal units of Japan covered by the projections, which were divided, in most cases, along municipal borders.

The total population of Chuo Ward grew from 141,183 in 2015 to 169,179 in 2020. The growth rate of 19.8 percent over the corresponding five years was one of the highest in Japan.

“The population of those aged between 45 and 74 was very large relative to the population of those aged 75 or older as of 2020,” said an IPSS official in charge of public relations and public hearings. 

The population growth is expected to affect the ward’s rapidly aging demographic in the years to come.

One of the tasks that Chuo Ward will face as its population ages is to build facilities for those who need elderly nursing care.

The ward now hosts seven intensive care homes for the elderly, but they have already been filled to their combined capacity of 367 residents. Some 250 applicants are on the waiting list to be admitted into those institutions.

The waiting time will inevitably grow longer if the elderly population grows further under the given circumstances. The situation is further aggravated by a nationwide shortage of nursing care workers.

The ward government is currently focusing, among other things, on maintaining and upgrading its school buildings and on a plan to build a new subway line.

However, it will “have to switch priorities to meet the demands of elderly citizens in the years to come,” said an official with the ward government’s Long-Term Care Insurance Section.

VILLAGE EXPECTS SHIFT IN NURSING, HEALTH CARE DEMAND

Many of the municipalities where the population of those aged 75 or older are expected to grow steeply from 2020 are located in urban areas, such as Yokohama’s Tsuzuki Ward and the city of Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, in addition to Tokyo's Chuo ward.

On the contrary, the corresponding elderly population is expected to drop sharply in provincial municipalities that contain aging remote communities, such as the villages of Nanmoku, Gunma Prefecture; Tenryu, Nagano Prefecture; and Nosegawa, Nara Prefecture.

Municipalities with a shrinking elderly population are expected to see a shift in the demand for nursing care and health care.

Elderly people aged 65 or older account for 65.2 percent of Nanmoku’s total population, a ratio higher than anywhere else in Japan.

The IPSS projected the population size of Nanmoku’s residents aged 75 or older, with the 2020 level set at 100, will drop to 71.3 in 2030, 40.5 in 2045 and 31.9 in 2050. The expected rate of decrease between the period from 2020 through 2050 is the steepest in Japan.

Nanmoku’s total population is also projected to dwindle from 1,611 in 2020 to only 406 in 2050.

The Nanmoku village government has taken measures to allow elderly villagers to continue living in the community, including by opening a small, community-based intensive care home for them in 2018.

In the mid- to long term, however, there will be “fewer elderly villagers and less demand for elderly nursing care,” said an official with the village government’s community development and employment promotion section.

Village officials have defined taking measures to address the falling birthrate as the biggest challenge it faces and has started arranging for the use of unoccupied houses in the village by would-be immigrants.

It has also been working to create jobs, including by setting up a roadside rest area.

EXPERT’S VIEW

Tatsuaki Takano, a professor of welfare care with Toyo University in Tokyo, said the so-called “late-stage elderly,” or those aged 75 or older, will notably increase in number in Japan’s urban areas after 2040.

That will put a spotlight on the short supply of elderly care facilities and care workers.

Takano said it is unrealistic to expect many private businesses to enter the elderly care market in urban areas, with the high land prices and high wages needed.

“So local governments in such areas will have to take measures of their own, such as acquiring land plots for elderly care facilities, building similar institutions and raising wage levels for caregivers,” he said.

Takano continued: “Mountainous regions, remote islands and other provincial areas, on the contrary, will see a sharp drop in the number of elderly residents and a remarkable shortage of those who could support their lives, so nursing care will cease to be operable as a business there.”

He said special measures will be needed for meeting the demand for elderly care in provincial areas, "such as by allowing a business to be operated like in a special zone even when staffing and other requirements are not met, and by tapping into public funds to cover part of transportation costs for home-visit and outpatient care services.”