mosunshine

Will you still need me,
Will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

The so-called baby boomers of Japan (people born during the post-war boom starting in 1947) will relate to these lyrics in more ways than one. They grew up listening to this song and now suddenly it is starting to make ironic sense.

Incidentally, although he's a few years older than Japan's baby boomers, Paul McCartney, the writer of this classic Beatles tune, will, in fact, be 64 years old next month.

Baby Boom + 60 Years

Japan has one of the fastest aging populations in the world. By 2025, the number of Japanese aged 50 or over will account for half the population, according to Tokyo's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. What's more, this year about 7 million baby boomers will begin making their way toward retirement.

Japan's population pyramid gets turned upside down by 2050.

Japan' s society must adjust to absorb the impact that the population shifts will bring. Over the next 20 years, the challenge will be to design an effective social welfare system, and to look for ways to finance the growing needs of a whole (aging) generation.

Even though the changes are still a few years away, some interesting differences in the landscape of urban and rural Japan have already appeared. Since nursing home care is not covered by the national health insurance program, private nursing homes have begun to sprout up in towns all over the country.

A typical "purpose-built" retirement home-a facility built expressly for care of the aged.

Various business premises have been converted into care facilities as companies race to join the new lucrative market of providing for the aged. Company dormitories from the economic bubble of the 1980s and early 1990s are being swiftly revamped for elderly care.

Until last year, a bank; now, a day-care center for the elderly.

As the ranks of Japan's elderly continue to swell, this upward trend in nursing care facilities is sure to gather speed. If you live in Japan or have a chance to visit and happen up on a nursing home, see if you can tell whether the building was originally intended as a care facility, or looks more like a bank-or a conference center or a dormitory-"repurposed" to serve Japan's newest senior citizens.