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Population Census
1 Labour Force Status
Labour force: 66.1 million persons; labour force ratio: 61.1 percent
- The labour force (total of employed persons and unemployed persons of the population aged 15 and over) was 66,097,816 persons in 2000, declining by 920,171 (1.4 percent) from 1995. Broken down by sex, there were 39,250,238 males in the labour force and 26,847,578 females, a 2.8 percent decline for males, and for females a 0.8 percent increase from 1995.
- The labour force ratio (ratio of the labour force to the population aged 15 and over) was 61.1 percent, a drop of 2.5 percentage points from 1995. A breakdown of the labour force ratio by sex revealed a figure of 74.8 percent for males and 48.2 percent for females; a decline of 4.0 percentage points for males and 0.9 percentage points for females respectively from 1995.
- A breakdown of the labour force ratio by age showed a high tableau of 90 percent at each of the ages 26 to 59 for males, and an M-shaped curve for females, peaking at 79.9 percent at age 23 and 70.7 percent at age 46, and bottoming out at 55.8 percent at age 33. In comparison with 1995, this means that the ratio declined at each of the ages 18 and over for males, and rose at each of the ages 24 to 61 for females.
- A breakdown of the labour force ratio by prefecture showed that for males Nagano-ken had the highest ratio (78.6 percent) with Kochi-ken the lowest (70.2 percent), while for females, Fukui-ken had the highest ratio (54.0 percent) with Nara-ken the lowest (40.8 percent).
- The number of employed persons aged 15 and over was 62,977,960, a 1.8 percent decline from 1995. Broken down by sex, this constituted a 3.3 percent drop for males and a 0.5 percent increase for females.
Table 1. Population by Labour Force Status and Sex - Japan (1995, 2000)
Table 2. Labour Force Ratio by Age (Five-Year Groups) and Sex - Japan (2000)
Figure 1. Labour Force Ratio by Age (Five-Year Groups) and Sex - Japan (2000)