Her death was announced on Saturday by the Mayor of Ashiya, Ryosuke Takashima, the city where she lived. The mayor said that she was a mother to four children and five grandchildren.

Takashima, revealed that the centenarian lived at a nursing home in the city of Ashiya since 2019 and died there on December 29, 2023.

Speaking on her qualities, the 27-year-old Mayor said she gave the city hope and the courage to thrive.

“We thank her for it,” he added.

Tomiko Itooka, was born in Osaka, Japan, on May 23, 1908, four months before the launch of the Ford Model T vehicle in the USA. She grew up with her three siblings, and lived through the world wars, pandemics and witnessed scores of technological breakthroughs.

As a young student, she enjoyed sports such as volleyball, but in her older age, she developed a love for bananas and Calpis, which is a milky soft drink popular in Japan.

In August 2024, Itooka became recognised as the oldest person in the world after the death of her counterpart, Maria Branyas Morera of Spain who died at the age of 117.

The mortality rate in Japan especially among its women is relatively low with a record that showed that a third of its 124 million population, are between age 65 and above. In September, the country recorded more than 95,000 people who were 100 or older, 88 percent of whom were women.

The increasing elderly population has subjected its government into heavier medical and welfare payouts to care for its senior citizens, with a shrinking work force left to pay for it.

Although Japan’s demography hit a record high at 128 million in 2008, the population began to decline after registering 125 million in 2022. The population is projected to decline to 63 million in 2100, which was half of its population in 2022.

In 2023, Japan’s total population declined continuously unbroken for 15 straight years dropping by more than a half-million people as the population ages and births remain low. Births in Japan hit a record low of 730,000 in 2023.

The demographic crisis is as a result of the declining birth rate which the government tried to solve by introducing measures such as increase to child allowance and financial aid for young couples.

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