Recently, colleagues and I estimated a preliminary “Future Elderly Model” for Japan
(Chen, Jalal, et al. 2014).9 Our simulation suggests that by 2040, more than 35 percent of
Japan’s population age 50 and older will exhibit three or more limitations in Instrumental
Activities of Daily Living and social functioning; about one in three will experience
difficulties with three or more basic Activities of Daily Living; and more than one in four
will suffer limitations in cognitive or intellectual functioning. Even if these projections
may represent an over-estimate of disability in the later years, they nevertheless suggest a
disturbingly high future burden of disability in Japan. Since the majority of the increase
in disability arises from greater survival to older ages, prevention efforts that reduce agespecific
disability (or future compression of morbidity among middle-aged Japanese)
may have only a limited impact on reducing the overall prevalence of disability among
Japanese elderly.