A new Office for National Statistics (ONS) study has indicated that Japanese women have the longest life expectancy among women in 21 selected countries - an average of 86.4 years.*1
In an aging society with an increasing average lifespan, data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare indicate that the gap between healthy life expectancy and average life expectancy is 9.2 years for men and 12.8 years for women. This means that women are spending around one-seventh of their actual life either bedridden or in care. Because the extension of healthy life expectancy and better quality of life for women is becoming more important, the Japanese government has made women's health one of the pillars of the government's "New Health Frontier Strategy".