• Literacy rate: 99%
• Numbers in tertiary education: 3.11m students

The education system

The Japanese education system is highly pressurized and competitive. One of the key dividing lines is between university graduates, who get the most coveted white-collar jobs, and nongraduates, who have difficulty reaching management level.

Competition for university places is intense, and starts with the choice of kindergarten, which the Japanese attend from the age of four. Academic pressure diminishes once at university. Graduates from Tokyo, Kyoto, Waseda, and Keio, which are the most prestigious universities, have access to top civil service and business jobs. The system succeeds in producing a uniformly well-educated workforce. However, it has also been criticized for not fostering individual responsibility, flexibility, or entrepreneurship.

• Protected land as percentage of total land area: 7% (3% partially protected)
• CO2 emissions trend: 9.3 tonnes per capita

Environmental treaties

• Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Washington DC, 1973: yes
• Convention on Biological Diversity Earth Summit in Rio, 1992: yes
• 1992 Amendment to protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer (amendment to Montreal Protocol) Copenhagen, 1992: yes
• Kyoto Convention on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions Earth Summit in Kyoto, 1997: yes
• Basel convention on the dumping of hazardous wastes (Basel) Basel, 1989: yes
• Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar) Ramsar, Iran 1971: yes

Japan supports moves to establish a global foundation to aid sustainable development in the Third World. In 1997 it played host to the Kyoto climate conference, though it only agreed to a modest cut in its "greenhouse gas" emissions. It faces strong criticism for its consumption of tropical timber, overfishing, and continuing to catch whale species under the aegis of "scientific research."

Traditional Japanese respect for nature has spawned a vigorous grassroots ecological movement, which prevented a second runway at Tokyo's Narita airport, and opposes nuclear power expansion and waste processing. The most serious environmental disasters have been a nuclear accident at Tokaimura in 1999 and the breakup in early 1997 of a Russian oil tanker along Japan's western shoreline.

• Doctors: 1 per 496 people
• Major causes of death: Cancers, respiratory, cerebrovascular, and heart diseases

Japan's health care system, which has been ranked by WHO as the best in the world, delivers among the highest longevity and lowest infant mortality rates. The poorest in society receive free treatment; expensive high-tech hospital facilities can also offer the latest techniques. Contributory national health insurance is based on earnings-related premiums, and the cost of medical care for the elderly and the self-employed is subsidized, though the rapidly aging population presents a major future funding challenge.