Most Centenarians Are Dead

I saw this the other day at the Asahi Shimbun: "Japan’s centenarian population hits new record high." From the article:

    As of Sept. 1, 47,888 individuals had reached the age of 100 this fiscal year or were projected to do so by the end of the fiscal year in March. This represents a 781-person increase from the previous year and is the highest number ever recorded.

    Women accounted for 88 percent of centenarians, with 83,958 women and 11,161 men reaching the milestone.

    When considering the number of centenarians per 100,000 people, Shimane Prefecture had the highest rate at 159.54, ranking first for the 12th consecutive year.

    Saitama Prefecture had the lowest rate, with 45.81 centenarians per 100,000 people, marking the 35th consecutive year at the bottom of the list.

But is it true? Vox Day recently noted that "The Extreme Elderly Don’t Exist." He related comments from a researcher who examined claims of the numbers of centenarians. The researcher wrote:

In general, the claims about how long people are living mostly don’t stack up. I’ve tracked down 80% of the people aged over 110 in the world (the other 20% are from countries you can’t meaningfully analyse). Of those, almost none have a birth certificate. In the US there are over 500 of these people; seven have a birth certificate. Even worse, only about 10% have a death certificate.

The researcher also mentions that "[t]here was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death." And:

Regions where people most often reach 100-110 years old are the ones where there’s the most pressure to commit pension fraud, and they also have the worst records. For example, the best place to reach 105 in England is Tower Hamlets. It has more 105-year-olds than all of the rich places in England put together.

Wikipedia relates that "[i]n 2017, a joint study by Trust for London and New Policy Institute found Tower Hamlets to be the 2nd most deprived London borough (after Barking and Dagenham) based on an average calculated across a range of indicators; with high rates of poverty, child poverty, unemployment and pay inequality compared to other London boroughs." It also has one of the highest proportions of Muslims in England.