What Can We Learn From Japan’s Diaper Demand?

Approximately five years ago, in Japan, the average age of a taxi driver was 60 and a truck driver, 48.

Further reflecting Japan’s aging demography, their over-80 population exceeds 10%.

So, they have had to adjust.

Japan’s Aging Population

The facts

With a plunging growth rate, the Japanese population will continue to shrink:

Consequently, their population pyramid has an increasing bulge at the top:

The impact

A recent BBC headline said “Japan nappy maker shifts from babies to adults.” As the article explained, Oji Holding said it would target the adult diaper market rather than babies. With close to 30% of the Japanese population aged 65 or older and the government providing subsidies for medical supplies that include diapers, a shift toward the elderly made sense. As far back as 2011, Japan’s largest diaper maker, Unicharm, said its adult sales were more than for kids. And, at econlife, a decade ago, we learned that some retailers had slowed escalator speeds because of older customers.

Correspondingly, more people are living alone:

Predictably, with more people living alone, businesses are catering to singles. According to CBS News, more restaurants welcome individual customers while grocery stores are marketing smaller food portions. Meanwhile, at work, industries like construction have had to change because the proportion of laborers above 55 rose to 36% in 2022 while those below 29 declined to a bit less than 12%. Similarly, on the farm, the average farmer’s age rose to an estimated 68.4 from 67 between 2015 and 2022. And, for the entire country, they have healthcare costing four times as much for people over 65 as for their younger population.

Our Bottom Line: Dependency Ratios

As economists, Japan’s aging population takes us to its dependency ratio. Shown below, an old-age dependency ratio conveys the responsibility placed on the working population by an elderly cohort. At just two workers for each person aged 64 and older, Japan’s dependency ratio is the highest in the world:

Whether looking at single households, or the workplace, or the entire society, an aging population has a massive impact.

Returning to today’s title, changing diaper demand has a far larger message.

My sources and more: Ranging from the WEF and the Carnegie Endowment to the BBC and a CBS report, researchers are looking at Japan’s aging population. Always though, for its statistics and explanations, Our World In Data comes in handy. And, for more about other countries’ aging facts, do take a look at this past econlife post.