Japan confronts a stark reality: a nation of old people - III

In the dwindling hamlet of Nagoro on Shikoku Island, 79-year-old Shinobu Ogura cleans the vacant elementary school. The last students stitched dolls in their likenesses; Tsukimi Ayano, a 72-year-old resident, made the principal. She has populated Nagoro, which now has just 25 inhabitants, with hundreds of dolls.

Tadao Inoue had 50 cows on his dairy farm in Nasu, in central Japan; now he’s down to one. With age, the work became too hard, but he says that having even one cow to milk keeps him going. Still, Inoue, 84, has decided to call it quits soon.

A farm in Nakashibetsu on the island of Hokkaido uses a rotary machine to automatically milk its 360 cows. “In the dairy industry in Japan, labor shortages and aging are serious issues,” says Daisuke Sasaki, the farm’s owner. “Adopting these robots is contributing to the economy.”

Outside her home in a mountainous hamlet on Shikoku, 91-year-old Toshie Ueno takes a stroll after feeding her 15 cats. She’s the last person in the secluded area. “I am alone here,” she says, “but this is where I live.”