Table 2. International comparison of the proportion of those aged 65 and over for selected lndustrialized nations ia 1995 and 2025

Sources: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 1994 Revision, New York, 1995.The data for Japan are based upon the NUPRI population projection.

alized nations, Japan's population is likely to become the world's oldest known human population in the early part of the next century. More importantly, the Japanese population will reach the world's highest level of aging at an unprecedented rate, as can be seen by inspecting Table 3.Japan's aged population reached the 10-percent level in the year 1985 and was the latest among all the industrialized nations listed in Table 3. Despite this delayed onset, Japan is the first country in which the aged comprise more than 20 percent of the total population among all the countries appearing in this table. The length of time required to increase from 10 to 20 percent of the Japanese population is only 22 years. Compared with such European countries as Sweden and Germany, Japan will age at a tempo approximately three times as fast.

Thirdly, the aging of the aged population itself deserves special attention. As shown in Table 1, the proportion of those aged 75 and over in the population aged 65 and over grows rapidly after the turn of the century. It is projected to rise from 39.9 percent in 2000 to 56.6 percent in 2025. A close examinaton of this projected result and country-specific data produced from the recent population projection prepared by the United Nations (1994) reveals that Japan's level for 2025 is likely to be by far the highest in the world, followed by Sweden (51.1 percent). Obviously, this

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