Some of the world's centenarians may exist only on pension paperwork
United Nations estimates of people aged 100 or more have soared, from 23,000 in 1950 to 935,000 in 2024. But research that won a 2024 Ig Nobel Prize argues the figures are inflated by pension fraud and sloppy records, and the US Census Bureau once suspected a third of claimed centenarians were exaggerating.
Counting the very old is harder than it sounds. The UN's series of estimates climbed steadily through the decades, yet in 2012, after countries such as the United States revised their own figures downward, it put the world total at just 316,600. American numbers show the same wobble: the 2010 census counted 53,364 centenarians and the 2020 census 80,139, while the Census Bureau warned in 1999 that many self-reported ages over 100 might be inflated.
The group is heavily female. In Japan in fiscal 2016 there were 57,525 women aged 100 or more and 8,167 men, a ratio of 7 to 1. Beyond 100 the odds fall away quickly. Only about one centenarian in a thousand reaches 110 and becomes a supercentenarian; just 82 people in recorded history are known beyond doubt to have reached 115, only three of them men, and France's Jeanne Calment remains the only verified person to reach 120.
Living to a hundred has long been the shape of a good wish. Poles sing Sto lat, Italians toast a cent'anni, Swedish birthday songs wish a hundred years, and a common Jewish blessing aims for 120. Sri Lankans go further, hoping someone reaches 220. Chinese emperors were hailed to live ten thousand years.
States often mark the milestone. British royal greetings began under Edward VII in 1908, and today the monarch sends cards at 100 and on every birthday from 105. Japanese centenarians receive a silver cup from the prime minister, the Philippines pays a gift of 100,000 pesos, and Ireland offers a bounty of 2,540 euros. New Mexico has exempted centenarians from state income tax since 2002. Notable arrivals include Strom Thurmond, the first sitting senator to reach 100, and Jimmy Carter, the first former US president, on 1 October 2024.
Source: Centenarian
