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ACQ
Volume 12, Number 3 2010
ACQ
uiring knowledge in speech, language and hearing
Asia Pacific
Demographics
The population of Japan has been in decline since its peak in
2004. As of 1 November 2009, the total population of Japan
is estimated to be 127.5 million people (approximately 6
times that of Australia) living in an area of 370,000 km
2
(less
than 5% of Australia). The nation is rapidly ageing having
both the longest average life expectancy in the world (79.29
years for men, ranked 4th place in the world; 86.05 for
women, ranked 1st place) and a low birthrate (1.37)
(Honkawa, 2010a, 2010b). Children under the age of 14
account for only 13.3% of the population, while senior
citizens who are 65 years and older, 22.8%. Almost 11% of
the population is over 75 years old (Ministry of Internal
Affairs, 2010).
Speech language
hearing services in
Japan
Jun Katsuki-Nakamura and Junichi Fukaura
Keywords
JAPAN
JAPANESE
ASSOCIATION
OF SPEECH-
LANGUAGE-
HEARING
THERAPISTS
SPEECH-
LANGUAGE-
HEARING
THERAPIST
Religion
Most Japanese people do not identify themselves with any
particular religion, but they follow the family religion for
worshipping ancestors. They also participate in a variety of
annual events and festivals which have a religious origin. An
average home has both Shinto and Buddhist altars.
Influences of Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity can be
also found in Japanese culture (The Kodansha Encyclopedia,
1999, pp. 476–499).
Language
Japanese is used as the official language and taught in
schools as the “national language”. Only 1.3% (1.72 million)
of the population is non-Japanese, of which Chinese and