Japan is renowned for its impressive life expectancy, but efforts to extend the period of life spent in good health remain a crucial challenge.
In 2022, Japan’s “healthy life expectancy,” which refers to the number of years a person can live in full health without requiring nursing care, stood at 75.45 years for women and 72.57 years for men. This marks a modest increase of 0.07 years for women, but a slight decrease of 0.11 years for men compared to 2019. Healthy life expectancy is assessed every three years by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, based on national surveys.
Japan’s overall life expectancy is among the highest in the world, with an average of 87.09 years for women and 81.05 years for men. Subtracting the healthy life expectancy from the total life expectancy reveals that women live an average of 11.63 years in less than perfect health, while men live 8.49 years under similar conditions. Although these figures represent a decline from 2019—by 0.43 years for women and 0.24 years for men—the overall trends in both average and healthy life expectancy have shown similar patterns since 2001, with little change in the gap.
One of Japan’s ongoing challenges is to reduce the gap between total life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, a key issue for both individuals and society at large.
By region, Shizuoka Prefecture reported the highest healthy life expectancy, with 76.68 years for women and 73.75 years for men, while Iwate Prefecture had the lowest, with 74.28 years for women and 70.93 years for men.
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