According to annual white paper by the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, The number of women and elderly people preparing to start new businesses has been rising in Japan amid the aging of the population that has caused a decrease in the number of small and medium-sized companies with the retirement of their owners.The report says that in 2002, 19.9 per cent of company founders that year were aged 60 or over, up from 15.6 per cent in 1997. In 2002, about two-thirds of people starting their own businesses aged 65 or older launched companies in the service sector. In the real estate industry, 65.2 per cent of entrepreneurs were aged 60 or older.
Female entrepreneurs also set up businesses mostly in the service sector in 2002, while the number of women starting operations in the construction and transport industries was fewer than men.
