People cross a street under the hot sun in Tokyo on July 24, 2025. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
Tokyo: Japanese women in 2024 had the highest life expectancy in the world at 87.13 years, remaining in the top spot for the 40th straight year, a health ministry survey showed on Friday.
The average life expectancy for Japanese females dropped 0.01 year from 2023, followed in the global ranking by South Korea at 86.40 and Spain at 86.34, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Meanwhile, Japanese men's life expectancy remained unchanged at 81.09, ranking 6th globally after Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Italy and Spain, slipping one place from 2023.
The country's life expectancy declined in 2021 and 2022 due to the increase in deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, but rebounded in 2023 when average lifespans for both men and women surpassed those from the previous year for the first time in three years.
