Nabi Tajima

Nabi Tajima - 117 years, 260 days, Japan

Nabi Tajima is listed as the third oldest woman ever in GRG records, yet questions about the accuracy of her birth record have been raised. Her case is marked as “disputable” on Gerontology Wiki pages [27]. Although she is thought to be a genuine supercentenarian, doubt has been cast on her claimed age and her case is under review [39]. Tajima is said to have been born in the Kagoshima region of Japan in 1900. Despite her high placing, no scientific record of her validation has been published yet and detailed information is hard to come by.

A number of potential problems with the Japanese system of Koseki records have been raised [31,45,46,34]. In particular, there was a custom in Kagoshima of using the registration of a deceased first child for younger siblings [46,34]. Is it possible that the birth record of Nabi Tajima has been compromised? A full report is needed from Japanese validators to clarify the real situation.

Tajima had a son born in 1919 when she would have been about 19 years old. This is sometimes cited as evidence that she could have been at most two years younger than her claimed age. In fact it is possible to give birth from thirteen years or younger, and an underage pregnancy is a strong motivation for a woman to exaggerate her age.

We were hoping for clarification on her validation with the 2020 update to the IDL, but we learnt only that validators were unable to contact her [76]. Until more information becomes available we therefore consider her case disputed and believe that she should not be included in supercentenarian lists unless her true age can be established reliably.