5 ms·

Why life expectancy in Japan may in fact be a bit lower

21 points by cwan 16y ago

harshpotatoes 16y ago
I heard through a New York Times article that the data they use to calculate life expectancy is from the census (which is accurate), while the missing elderly are in other records. So it doesn't appear the life expectancy figure is in question. NYTimes: Japan’s Elderly Count Was Off by 234,000 http://nyti.ms/cim254 http://nyti.ms/cim254 I apologize for the shortened url, I'm on a mobile device.
- natrius 16y ago
  Why are they assuming that the census data is accurate? I don't see how it would be any harder to falsify. It's relatively easy to check for individuals who don't show up in any other government data or are known to be dead, but if the government thinks they're alive, why would a household not include the dead person? Then again, I don't know how Japan's census actually works.
  - patio11 16y ago
    A census official comes to your house, gives you a piece of paper to fill out about your household, asks you a few questions, and then departs. Here's the miscalculation: pension benefits are administered by the pension office of the city you live in. Unlike America, everyone is registered at the local town office. When you move between towns, you're supposed to a notification with the old town and the new town. They don't synch their records, which are still kept mostly on paper. Thus, if I were hypothetically an old man who lived with my family in Nagoya, then moved to an old folk's home in Ogaki (establishing a new household there), the pension system would not necessarily catch me drawing pensions in two places. If I subsequently expire in Ogaki, notification of my death will update Ogaki's records, but nobody will call Nagoya to tell them "Hey, this guy who shouldn't be on your books anymore is dead now." If this strikes you as a mindbogglingly inefficient way to run a national pension system worth trillions, wait until I tell you about the time where they discovered they had just totally lost the records of the existence of several million people.
    - natrius 16y ago
      So you're saying the hidden or unnoticed dead person isn't the cause of most of these, it's just that incorrect double pensions turn into incorrect single pensions? Hm... it still seems like the census data could be incorrect. All those people who are receiving pensions for dead people have a pretty big incentive to make it look like that person is still alive, so I don't see why they'd fill out the census form without counting the dead person.
      - patio11 16y ago
        For these and other reasons, the Census makes it quite clear that they treat all information as confidential and do not report it to any government agency. There were ads explaining that for literally months prior to the last census. The census taker who stopped by to speak with me helpfully noted that Japan would be quite grateful if, for statistical purposes, I would mention all of my illegal relatives, too, and that he would absolutely not speak to Immigration about them.
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        The census may claim to treat information collected as confidential. But why would people believe them? The US government also claims census data is confidential, but that claim has been proven to be a lie. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-census-role_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-census-role_N...
        martey 16y ago
        I am not sure how a disclosure of information during World War II that was legal under the laws of the time has any relevance on how information is treated now. See http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/title_13_-_protection_of_confidential_information.html http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/title_13_-_pro...
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
howard_yeh 16y ago
passive income ftw
scythe 16y ago
So... this would mean that all of those things that we assume make you live longer "because they do them in Japan" are bullshit, correct?
- VMG 16y ago
  depends on the data sources - I assume they use different data for these kinds of studies
- smashing 16y ago
  Looks like it. Now can they check the French out because I have a hard time believing a high cholesterol diet and smoking doesn't have a negative effect on longevity.
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  the bullshit part is that people think the japanese actually do those things that make you live longer. maybe everyone in japan ate an okinawan diet... in okinawa, 200 years ago. japan today is one of the worlds largest beer consuming countries. They are hardcore smokers, junk food fiends, hanbaagaa setto aficionados, subject themselves to 2 hour train rides, oppressive family lives, bipolar attitudes towards sex (lots of porn; little actual sex), insane work hours or unemployed shut-ins, and so on and so forth. If anything the longevity of the japanese is a counterexample to what most people think makes people live longer...
  - cdavid 16y ago
    You are overly exaggerating things. First, concerning junk food, it is nowhere near what you find in the US, especially quantity-wise (to give a stupid example, the biggest menu in Mc Donald's in Japan is smaller than the smallest thing you can get in the US). The figures for obesity, while rising, are nowhere near the US or West Europe figures. I don't see how the attitude toward sex or oppressive family are linked to life expectancy.
    - Mz 16y ago
      ...bipolar attitudes towards sex (lots of porn; little actual sex)... I don't see how the attitude toward sex or oppressive family are linked to life expectancy. Sex is germy? No sex = no STDs? (Not entirely kidding, but I'm sure my sense of humor is what is compelling me to remark upon it, which often spells trouble for me. :-/)
mkramlich 16y ago
This reminds me of another interesting aspect of Japan that may be related to this issue. Of all the high-tech big-GDP countries, Japan is one of the most homogenous racially/ethnically. Not perfectly so (looks at patio11), but much more so than say the US, Canada, UK, France, etc.
quant18 16y ago
Women over 103 and men over 98 are not included in Japan's life expectancy statistics. So most of the fake centenarians will simply have absolutely no effect. This was repeatedly pointed out in the Japanese media when this scandal came to light a month ago. E.g. http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 (Google translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h... ... edit: I see that the machine translation managed to invert the sense of the last paragraph. The official quote there is actually "Even with this problem, we probably will NOT have to revise the average longevity".) Unfortunately this factoid has been ignored in the Anglophone media, leaving it to a few nutcases on bulletin boards and blogs to try to get the word out (there is even a guy in the Economist comments section who mentions this).

21 points by cwan 16y ago

I heard through a New York Times article that the data they use to calculate life expectancy is from the census (which is accurate), while the missing elderly are in other records. So it doesn't appear the life expectancy figure is in question. NYTimes: Japan’s Elderly Count Was Off by 234,000 http://nyti.ms/cim254 http://nyti.ms/cim254 I apologize for the shortened url, I'm on a mobile device.

natrius 16y ago
Why are they assuming that the census data is accurate? I don't see how it would be any harder to falsify. It's relatively easy to check for individuals who don't show up in any other government data or are known to be dead, but if the government thinks they're alive, why would a household not include the dead person? Then again, I don't know how Japan's census actually works.
- patio11 16y ago
  A census official comes to your house, gives you a piece of paper to fill out about your household, asks you a few questions, and then departs. Here's the miscalculation: pension benefits are administered by the pension office of the city you live in. Unlike America, everyone is registered at the local town office. When you move between towns, you're supposed to a notification with the old town and the new town. They don't synch their records, which are still kept mostly on paper. Thus, if I were hypothetically an old man who lived with my family in Nagoya, then moved to an old folk's home in Ogaki (establishing a new household there), the pension system would not necessarily catch me drawing pensions in two places. If I subsequently expire in Ogaki, notification of my death will update Ogaki's records, but nobody will call Nagoya to tell them "Hey, this guy who shouldn't be on your books anymore is dead now." If this strikes you as a mindbogglingly inefficient way to run a national pension system worth trillions, wait until I tell you about the time where they discovered they had just totally lost the records of the existence of several million people.
  - natrius 16y ago
    So you're saying the hidden or unnoticed dead person isn't the cause of most of these, it's just that incorrect double pensions turn into incorrect single pensions? Hm... it still seems like the census data could be incorrect. All those people who are receiving pensions for dead people have a pretty big incentive to make it look like that person is still alive, so I don't see why they'd fill out the census form without counting the dead person.
    - patio11 16y ago
      For these and other reasons, the Census makes it quite clear that they treat all information as confidential and do not report it to any government agency. There were ads explaining that for literally months prior to the last census. The census taker who stopped by to speak with me helpfully noted that Japan would be quite grateful if, for statistical purposes, I would mention all of my illegal relatives, too, and that he would absolutely not speak to Immigration about them.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        The census may claim to treat information collected as confidential. But why would people believe them? The US government also claims census data is confidential, but that claim has been proven to be a lie. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-census-role_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-census-role_N...
        martey 16y ago
        I am not sure how a disclosure of information during World War II that was legal under the laws of the time has any relevance on how information is treated now. See http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/title_13_-_protection_of_confidential_information.html http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/title_13_-_pro...
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]

howard_yeh 16y ago

passive income ftw

scythe 16y ago

So... this would mean that all of those things that we assume make you live longer "because they do them in Japan" are bullshit, correct?

VMG 16y ago
depends on the data sources - I assume they use different data for these kinds of studies
smashing 16y ago
Looks like it. Now can they check the French out because I have a hard time believing a high cholesterol diet and smoking doesn't have a negative effect on longevity.
maxawaytoolong 16y ago
the bullshit part is that people think the japanese actually do those things that make you live longer. maybe everyone in japan ate an okinawan diet... in okinawa, 200 years ago. japan today is one of the worlds largest beer consuming countries. They are hardcore smokers, junk food fiends, hanbaagaa setto aficionados, subject themselves to 2 hour train rides, oppressive family lives, bipolar attitudes towards sex (lots of porn; little actual sex), insane work hours or unemployed shut-ins, and so on and so forth. If anything the longevity of the japanese is a counterexample to what most people think makes people live longer...
- cdavid 16y ago
  You are overly exaggerating things. First, concerning junk food, it is nowhere near what you find in the US, especially quantity-wise (to give a stupid example, the biggest menu in Mc Donald's in Japan is smaller than the smallest thing you can get in the US). The figures for obesity, while rising, are nowhere near the US or West Europe figures. I don't see how the attitude toward sex or oppressive family are linked to life expectancy.
  - Mz 16y ago
    ...bipolar attitudes towards sex (lots of porn; little actual sex)... I don't see how the attitude toward sex or oppressive family are linked to life expectancy. Sex is germy? No sex = no STDs? (Not entirely kidding, but I'm sure my sense of humor is what is compelling me to remark upon it, which often spells trouble for me. :-/)

mkramlich 16y ago

This reminds me of another interesting aspect of Japan that may be related to this issue. Of all the high-tech big-GDP countries, Japan is one of the most homogenous racially/ethnically. Not perfectly so (looks at patio11), but much more so than say the US, Canada, UK, France, etc.

quant18 16y ago

Women over 103 and men over 98 are not included in Japan's life expectancy statistics. So most of the fake centenarians will simply have absolutely no effect. This was repeatedly pointed out in the Japanese media when this scandal came to light a month ago. E.g. http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 (Google translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/190712 http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h... ... edit: I see that the machine translation managed to invert the sense of the last paragraph. The official quote there is actually "Even with this problem, we probably will NOT have to revise the average longevity".) Unfortunately this factoid has been ignored in the Anglophone media, leaving it to a few nutcases on bulletin boards and blogs to try to get the word out (there is even a guy in the Economist comments section who mentions this).