36.24 Million People Aged 65 and Over: How to Read Japan’s End-of-Life Planning Market in Numbers
Japan’s population aged 65 and over stood at 36.24 million as of September 2026. At 29.6% of the total population, that share is the highest on record. Annual deaths have also stayed at around 1.6 million, and Japan has entered what is often called a “high-mortality society.”
You often see numbers like these in the news, but when you are considering a business related to shukatsu (end-of-life planning), it is important to grasp where things stand by combining several indicators rather than relying on a single number. This article uses the key indicators covered at the start of our training textbook to explain how to read the shukatsu market.
Six indicators for seeing where things stand
Our training textbook tracks where the senior market stands today with the following six indicators:
Population aged 65 and over
Population aged 75 and over
Number of people certified as needing long-term care
Annual number of deaths
Number of vacant homes
Number of employed people aged 65 and over
The numbers of people who need care, of people who die, and of vacant homes that appear after inheritance are all rising. At the same time, the number of employed people aged 65 and over reached a record 9.43 million in 2025. Keeping both sides in view at once, older people who need support and older people who work and spend, is the first step toward understanding the shukatsu market.
The figure to watch: people aged 80 and over
The population aged 65 and over is expected to keep growing gradually until the mid-2040s, and the aging rate is projected to reach 34.8% in 2040. From a business point of view, however, the figure to watch more closely is the population aged 80 and over.
That population is projected to grow by about 3.16 million, from 12.91 million in 2025 to 16.07 million in 2035. Demand for moving into care facilities, and for placement consultations, is likely to peak in the 2030s, when this age group grows rapidly.
Older people living alone: 10.84 million households by 2050
Another major change is the increase in older people living alone. Single-person households aged 65 and over are projected to reach 10.84 million in 2050, and more and more people have no family member to act as their guarantor when they are admitted to hospital or move into a facility, or to handle the procedures after their death.
In 2024 the national government issued guidelines for providers of lifetime support services for older people, and moves to support these people through social systems are under way.
Three points for using numbers in your business
Check the reference date: Statistics change depending on when they are published. Whenever you use a figure in a document, always state when it is from.
Check the definition: Even “older people” means different things depending on whether it refers to people aged 65 and over or 75 and over. Market sizes are also calculated differently for public insurance benefits and for private transaction values.
Look at the peaks of growth: Rather than the overall total, look at which age groups grow and when. This shows when demand peaks and when you need to be ready.
Summary
The shukatsu market spans a wide range of fields, from care and medicine to housing, money, inheritance, funerals and clearing out belongings, covering the last stage of life and the time after death. The starting point for business planning is to grasp the big picture through the key indicators, and then to decide which group’s needs, at which point in time, you will address.
Source material for this column
This article is an excerpt, re-edited, from Vol. 1, “The big picture of Japan’s older population and end-of-life planning,” of Next Co., Ltd.’s Senior End-of-Life Planning Business: Comprehensive Training Textbook (Annotated Edition, 2026), which is written in Japanese. The Vol. 1 PDF is available free of charge.
For companies that want to distribute the textbooks to several employees for in-house training, an in-house training license edition is also available (in Japanese). For readers of English, Vol. 1 of our English edition, Senior End-of-Life Planning Textbook: The Market and Its Businesses, covers Japan’s older population and the market (see the English edition).
Related articles
The original Japanese version of this column is also published on note (read it on note, in Japanese). On note, we add a new column every Tuesday to our magazine “Shukatsu Business Columns (Every Tuesday)” (in Japanese).
Figures in this article are based on published data and our own materials as of October 2026.
This is an English translation of a column originally published in Japanese by Next Co., Ltd.
About Next Co., Ltd. We support companies in Japan’s senior care and end-of-life planning (shukatsu) market through research, business development and training. Our English textbook, Senior End-of-Life Planning Textbook, explains the market from the big picture down to day-to-day practice, including senior housing and care facility placement consulting. See the English edition | Buy on Gumroad | Contact us
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