Nearly 40,000 people died home alone in Japan this year, report says

Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows.

Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency.

Japan currently has the world’s oldest population, according to the United Nations.

The agency hopes its report will shed light on the country's growing issue of vast numbers of its aging population who live, and die, alone.

Taken from the first half of 2024, the National Police Agency data shows 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%.

While an estimated 40% of people who died alone at home were found within a day, the police report found that nearly 3,939 bodies were discovered more than a month after death, and 130 had lain 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.

According to Japanese public TV network NHK, the police agency will give its findings to a government group looking into the unattended deaths.

Earlier this year, the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, said the number of elderly citizens (aged 65 and above) living alone is expected to reach 10.8m by the year 2050.

The overall number of single-person households is estimated to hit 23.3m in the same year.

In April, the Japanese government introduced a bill tackling the country’s decades-long loneliness and isolation problem, partly caused by the country's ageing population.

Japan has long tried to counter its ageing and declining population, but the shift is becoming hard for the country to manage.

Last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its declining birth rate.

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.