Japan Counts 100,000 Residents Aged Over 100 as Hong Kong Opens Care Work to Foreign Labour

Japan now has a record 100,000 residents aged over 100, according to Al Jazeera's account of the government's annual count. Fewer births and a shrinking working-age population are placing sustained pressure on a social care system that depends on paid labour to function.

Hong Kong is confronting the same arithmetic with a policy experiment. A pilot scheme will admit foreign domestic carers specifically for elderly residents. Employers and placement agencies warn that the new category will compete for the same pool of workers as the existing domestic helper market, raising wages across both and putting care beyond what low-income older residents can pay.

Both cases describe the same constraint. An ageing population needs more care hours than the domestic workforce can supply at current wages, so the choice is between importing labour, paying much more for it, or rationing care. Governments across East Asia are making that choice now, under fiscal conditions that have already tightened as interest rates have risen.