Corporate Magazine 2012 - Boehringer Ingelheim

211 View of Tokyo with Japan’s highest mountain,Mount Fuji.2 A low birthrate and a long life expectancy aretrends in the Japanese population.3 Boehringer Ingelheim in TokyoJAPAN – HEALTHCAREFINANCING UNCLEARAccording to an estimate by the government in Tokyo, Japan’s populationwill undergo enormous contraction and ageing in the comingyears. Against this background, what the financing of the healthcaresystem will look like in the years ahead remains unclear.low birth rate, coupled with long lifeexpectancy, hardly any industrialisedsociety is ageing as fast as Japan. It isforecast that, in 2060, the average agewill be over 84 for a man and almost91 for a woman.ADAPTATION OF LIFESTYLEThe lifestyle of the Japanese isadapting increasingly to that ofwestern societies. The result is anincrease in chronic diseases, mostof all cardiovascular diseases.The country currently has 128 millioninhabitants. In the coming 50 yearsor so, it will, however, lose a third ofits population, according to estimatesby the Japanese Social Affairs Ministry.As a share of the total population,Japanese people over 65 years of agewill by then have almost doubled to40%, while the under 15s will havemore than halved, amounting to almosteight million.It is presumed that the low birth rateof 1.39 children per couple will fall toan average of 1.35 by 2060. Due to itsFinancing of the healthcare systemThe health insurance administrationsees itself confronted by a deficit inorder to be able to treat increasingnumbers of patients with Alzheimer’sdisease, cancer and lifestyle diseases,such as diabetes and cardiovasculardiseases. The healthcare deficit, especiallyfor the elderly, is particularlylarge as it generally has higher medicalexpenditure. Overall reform of thesystem is now under discussion. Thekey focus has been on the balance betweencost reduction and retainingcontinuous provision of high qualitymedical services.126 Boehringer Ingelheim annual report 2012