# Japan missing 230,000 people over 100 years old
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 10, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291 "2010-09-10T14:43:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/1 "2010-09-10T14:43:31Z")
Evidently they don’t update their records in Japan often enough.
[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100910/ap\_on\_re\_as/as\_japan\_missing\_centenarians](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100910/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_missing_centenarians)
> [@](#):
>
> OKYO – More than 230,000 Japanese citizens listed in government records as at least 100 years old can’t be found and may have died long ago, according to a government survey released Friday.
>
> In August, the Justice Ministry ordered a review of records that found about 77,000 people who would be at least 120, and 884 people who would be 150 or older. The head count followed a flurry of reports about how elderly people are falling through the cracks in Japan as its population ages rapidly and family ties weaken.
They fear that most of the missing centenarians may be dead. Fill in your joke here.
I don’t care how good your health care is, or how much healthy food they eat, it’s a safe bet that those 884 people over 150 are , in fact, dead.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/2 "2010-09-10T17:03:59Z")
Seems l read somewhere about a trend in a particular kind of fraud crime in Japan: people’s elderly relative quietly passes away, and the family members don’t notify anyone so that the pension payments keep rolling in.
Might be the case for at least some of these.
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### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/3 "2010-09-10T17:30:16Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> Seems l read somewhere about a trend in a particular kind of fraud crime in Japan: people’s elderly relative quietly passes away, and the family members don’t notify anyone so that the pension payments keep rolling in.
>
> Might be the case for at least some of these.
When the first guy, the 111-year-old in Tokyo, was discovered they did a few follow-up stories on the next few who were discovered. One whose son had hidden her body in a suitcase, but another, Tokyo’s oldest woman, seems to be genuinely missing. Her daughter had moved into her flat, but the woman hadn’t been home at the time, so the daughter thought the mom may have gone to stay with her brother. So she kept paying her mom’s health insurance.
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### Author:  [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/4 "2010-09-10T17:40:09Z")
In Canada we just put the elderly on ice flows to die. It’s too much work to try and cover it up.
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### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/5 "2010-09-10T17:42:58Z")
> [@Greenback](#):
>
> In Canada we just put the elderly on ice flows to die. It’s too much work to try and cover it up.
We don’t feed 'em to bears??? Shit, I’ve been doing it wrong!
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### Author:  [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/6 "2010-09-10T17:44:03Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#):
>
> > [@Greenback](#):
> >
> > In Canada we just put the elderly on ice flows to die. It’s too much work to try and cover it up.
>
> We don’t feed 'em to bears??? Shit, I’ve been doing it wrong!
I can’t believe you haven’t seen all the “don’t feed the bears” signs.
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### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/7 "2010-09-10T17:47:15Z")
> [@Greenback](#):
>
> I can’t believe you haven’t seen all the “don’t feed the bears” signs.
I thought those were supposed to be ironic.
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### Author:  [@panman\_1960](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panman_1960)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/8 "2010-09-10T18:18:49Z")
Proof positive…
Alien abduction run amuck!
later, Tom.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/9 "2010-09-10T18:42:15Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> Seems l read somewhere about a trend in a particular kind of fraud crime in Japan: people’s elderly relative quietly passes away, and the family members don’t notify anyone so that the pension payments keep rolling in.
>
> Might be the case for at least some of these.
_Freakonomics_ mentioned how seven million children apparently disappeared in 1987. That was the year that the IRS ruled that a social security number must be included for all claimed dependants. And millions of children who had been claimed up to 1987 vanished that year.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/10 "2010-09-11T00:38:38Z")
^ Someone on this board mentioned that the numbers went back up the next year, though, as if the problem was that a lot of kids just didn’t have a social security number.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/11 "2010-09-11T02:07:47Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> ^ Someone on this board mentioned that the numbers went back up the next year, though, as if the problem was that a lot of kids just didn’t have a social security number.
That’s true, but many stayed off. The issue was actualy with Mexican Dependents. There’s a special section of IRS code that allows you to claim your family in Mexico (and Canada, but they are not an issue with this). BUT they do NOT qualify you for Earned Income Credit or Head of Household. Many were claimed as living in the USA, and millions of EITC $ was paid out that way.
You can get a ITIN for them, but not a SSN.
Thus, they went bye-bye.
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### Author:  [@AnnaKareninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnnaKareninja)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/12 "2010-09-11T08:19:52Z")
Since Japan has one of the highest life expectancies, I wonder if this skews the results from records somewhat.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/13 "2010-09-11T11:02:46Z")
> [@AnnaKareninja](#):
>
> Since Japan has one of the highest life expectancies, I wonder if this skews the results from records somewhat.
Recent studies on diet & aging suggested that a high fish oil diet slows aging & deters heart disease.
But Japanese demographic data is obviously worthless. Skewed, towards the high end.
So, where does this leave the medical science studies?
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### Author:  [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/14 "2010-09-11T11:09:40Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> > [@AnnaKareninja](#):
> >
> > Since Japan has one of the highest life expectancies, I wonder if this skews the results from records somewhat.
>
> Recent studies on diet & aging suggested that a high fish oil diet slows aging & deters heart disease.
>
> But Japanese demographic data is obviously worthless. Skewed, towards the high end.
>
> So, where does this leave the medical science studies?
Recent studies on diet and aging have been amended: a high fish oil diet makes people _invisible!_
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### Author:  [@Saratoga\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saratoga_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/15 "2010-09-11T13:04:41Z")
A word about the missing oldsters… that statistic is based on an audit of “family registers”, which are maintained by local governments in Japan. Updating the register is voluntary on the part of individuals, and usually only done when some particular legal need arises.
Statistics on Japanese longevity are put out by the national government, and don’t rely on data from the family registers.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/16 "2010-09-11T13:18:02Z")
… and if the death is never registered, the pension checks keep coming. This audit has turned up a number of examples already, apparently.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/17 "2010-09-11T16:43:12Z")
> [@Greenback](#):
>
> In Canada we just put the elderly on ice flows to die. It’s too much work to try and cover it up.
In Norway I hear they just toss them all into the fjords.
😃
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### Author:  [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/18 "2010-09-11T17:07:31Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> In Norway I hear they just toss them all into the fjords.
Well, as I’ve said before: If you can’t find a place to hide a body in Norway, you’re not really trying.
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### Author:  [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japan-missing-230-000-people-over-100-years-old/553291/19 "2010-09-11T17:50:20Z")
This is why you don’t order the soylent-maki when in Japan.