I’m not quite sure what the moral of this report might be, but here is how it starts:
More than 230,000 Japanese people listed as 100 years old cannot be located and many may have died decades ago, according to a government survey released today.
The justice ministry said the survey found that more than 77,000 people listed as still alive in local government records would have to be aged at least 120, and 884 would be 150 or older.
The figures have exposed antiquated methods of record-keeping and fuelled fears that some families are deliberately hiding the deaths of elderly relatives in order to claim their pensions.
It’s an interesting way of looking at countries to ask: What statistics do they get wrong, and in which direction? (Also, which countries admit they got things wrong? Good for the government of Japan for noting their own error.)
For instance, it is now a cliché of Russia-watching that life expectancy there has nosedived, especially among men. Rather than move on straight away to speculating about why that might be (alcohol being the usual suspect) I find myself wondering if at least part of that story might be that the incentives to report deaths, conceal deaths, invent deaths, and so on, have changed, while the death rates themselves have changed rather less. Is there now perhaps some government scheme in Russia to “support” those who have lost a breadwinner, with a cash lump sum, which causes many families to become, as it were, impatient? Did communism cause people to claim the dead to be still alive, like in Japan, and has that incentive now been switched off?
I definitely recall reading about how, in India, before they allowed something more nearly resembling a free market, the tendency was for everyone to claim to be poorer than they really were, to avoid tax, which skewed poverty calculations dreadfully, and made the rest of us feel even sorrier for Indians than we should have.
Publicly acknowledged suicide rates are definitely going to vary according to how much pressure doctors face to call suicide something that is less of a reproach to those who were caring for the deceased. A higher “suicide rate” could accordingly mean that, in that particular country, suicide is considered less of a scandal.
We in Britain keep being told by our rulers that property crime has gone down, and we tell each other that we don’t think it worth reporting crimes any more. Hospital waiting lists, and all the perverse incentives associated with them, are another current British bone of contention.
My preferred moral is that one of the good things about free societies is that they are somewhat less likely to perpetrate permanently bogus data sets, because falsehood is, eventually if not immediately, bad for business. Government, unchecked by power centres beyond government, is liable to emit such falsehoods for far longer.
But it could just be that governments, by their nature, just love to gather statistics and to publish them, as proof that, one way or another, government is necessary. And more published statistics inevitably means more mistakes.
Very interesting. I read claims like this about Finland a lot for some reason – to the effect that its marginally higher crime rate (compared with Scandinavia proper) is more to do with more effective recording methods than anything else. Don’t know any of the details, though.
Which is why I laugh when lefties trot out Cuba’s health and literacy statistics, hot off the rollers of the Communist press. And then we have those who want to charge countries a fee for producing CO2 and truly believe the likes of Russia and China will report their figures honestly.
They don’t believe any such thing, they just want us to believe it.
The answer is simple, really. All those dead people are Democrats.
It would be interesting to review the ages of season ticket holders at Liverpool FC, I would guess that the proportion of centenarians is much higher then in the general population.
Good points, Brian. Other statistics to distrust:
Crime statistics, esp. for relative minor offences.
Tax evasion data (or indeed anything produced by that dimwit, Richard Murphy);
Chinese GDP data.
Any statistics from a “charity” providing them in support of yet more government bans and regulations. In particular, anything produced by such outfits such as the NSPCC, Christian Aid, Ash, etc.
Any statistic produced by AGW alarmists.
Lots of wrinklies in Tokyo? There may be in Japan some sort of family dynamic where an elderly relative living with the family is deemed to be some sort of indicator of care and maybe even a point of honour. The older the better.
Or they just can’t be bothered with filling in forms.
mehere wins, I suspect
I think one of most serious issues we have is that most Statistics production is made by the state. For example the fact that Inflation is calculated by the State is a serious issue.
Some months ago there was a short ‘why-oh-why’ piece on the TV news about our dirty beaches. It seemed that in the UK a far smaller proportion of our beaches were rated clean by the EU than in Italy. I couldn’t help noticing that (from memory) the UK was described as having 400 beaches, while Italy boasted 4000. I suspect that clean beaches in Italy are much shorter than dirty ones.
Interesting that you should refer to Richard Murphy. He and I have had several arguments over at AccountingWeb when he starts spewing his bogus ‘Tax Gap’ garbage over there.
Like all Looters and their supporters, he seems to see that the state and the services that it provides as being a right and that any taxes required to pay for it are inherently justified.
He’s also a big fan of people being taxed on citizenship rather than residence as that prevents people from avoiding taxes by leaving the country.
Fortunately, we’ve not reached the stage yet where the state slams the door shut to stop the milch cows from leaving.
Richard Murphy can stick his socialist paradise up his arse. Hopefully it will stop some of the utter shit he spouts from spreading further.
Detestable little man.
Equally, as surely as a dog returns to it’s vomit, he will be along here to try and get this post pulled as he monitors anything with his name on being posted on the web. This is how he gets his self-promoted viewpoint in the Grauniad.
Richard – go fuck yourself.
A few years ago it was discovered that people in the Chinese community in Austria were remarkably long lived. Or rather, their deaths were covered up and substitutes took their place in the pensions and benefits system. This was straight fraud rather than sloppy records.
What’s happening in the UK, eh?
John Galt wrote:
‘Fortunately, we’ve not reached the stage yet where the state slams the door shut to stop the milch cows from leaving.’
and while not disagreeing with your wider points, just wanted to remin readers that HMG did exactly that for decades after WW2 – restrictions on the export of capital were so restrictive that, effectively, a person could not emigrate outside the sterling area unless they were essentially indigent – in which case, it was virtually-impossible to find anywhere to emigrate to.
Don’t put it past them to imprison high-earning taxpayers in the same way again – they’ve done it before, Labour and Conservative alike.
llater,
llamas
Another obvious impact of this is that the claimed long average life expectancy of Japanese, which is continuously flogged on us here in the US as an excuse for both universal health care and for us to change our diet, is apparently totally bogus.
Mike Lorrey: I wouldn’t go that far. Removal of all these bogus gerontians (and back-dating of their actual deaths) could have some impact. But that assumes their deaths were not recorded.
Note that these people were listed with the local government, not the national government – thus no pension fraud. Also, obviously, the 884 sesquicentenarians were not considered real. (I would guess that those are cases of one set of records not being consistently updated.)
It would be interesting to age holders of season tickets to Liverpool, I would say that the proportion of centenarians are much higher than in the general population.
Thousands of Japanese people over 100 are missing? Maybe they just went AWOL during WW2!? There could be thousands of centenarians still hiding in the jungles in Asia, wondering what to do!
“The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of those figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman, who puts down what he damn well pleases.”
Attributed to Sir Josiah Stamp, a commissioner of the Inland Revenue Department, 1896-1919.
Sean Gabb is correct that the government should be banned from collecting statistics except for some rigidly defined sets of numbers.
Apropos the ‘missing Japanese’ fiasco, the UK’s Pension Benefits department requires that overseas recipients provide Notarized Proof, including photos, of their continued existence. I have recently had to provide that Notarization for 3 different clients. I have no idea if this is recent, but I suspect that it is triggered by age.
A higher “suicide rate” could accordingly mean that, in that particular country, suicide is considered less of a scandal.
T he perverse incentives associated with them, are another current British bone of contention.