Women And Seniors Make Up >51% Of Japan's Workforce

The Japanese people boast a favorable stereotype of being hard and dedicated workers who take their jobs very seriously. In fact, the Japanese even have a term to describe this attitude — "hatarakimono."

But, did you know that female and elderly workers represent more than 50 percent of the country's labor force?

According to Asia Nikkei Review, women and individuals 65 years and older represented 51.7 percent of the working population in 2015, marking the first time this category exceeded the 50 percent mark and up from 48.9 percent in 2010.

The surge in female and elderly workers is helping to ease shortages in fields including nursing and welfare to take care of the aging population.

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Japan's workforce also shrank by 2.95 million workers to 60.75 million from 2010 to 2015. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate fell by 3 percentage points to 70.8 percent among men and rose 0.2 percentage points to 49.8 percent among women.

Meanwhile, working seniors surged 27 percent over the past five years to 7.58 million.

"Accelerating the trend of increased employment among women and seniors will require adjusting working arrangements to make full use of their talents even if they work shorter hours," said Yoshio Higuchi, a professor at Keio University. "But such reforms are still some way off despite government efforts to expand employment among these groups."