Respect for the Aged Day

Respect for the Aged Day is an annual national holiday in Japan. It is 1 of the 16 national holidays in Article 2 of the Act on National Holidays. The National Diet created it by statute, and the Cabinet Office publishes its lists and explanations. It covers all of Japan as a full-day public holiday.

Its legal meaning is honoring elderly people who served society for many years and celebrating longevity. It has no level, threshold, or market signal, and it measures no elderly population, centenarian counts, older employment, or prices. Those population figures come from other agencies, not the holiday law.

It is observed each year on the 3rd Monday of September, always September 15 to 21, as a full-day public holiday. There is no release time, and cash markets shut for the full day with no signal. The Cabinet Office posts the coming two years of holiday lists, with the year-after-next list each February.

Japan Exchange Group publishes the matching market-holiday calendar, and its cash markets also shut on Saturdays, Sundays, and national holidays. Exchange holidays follow any change to the Act, and there are no data revisions because only a Diet amendment changes the holiday. Extra closures follow automatically from the Article 3 substitute and citizen-holiday rules.

It has no components, weights, or drivers because it is a single-date legal observance, not a composite index.

• Old People's Day: September 15 observance under the welfare law for older people, not part of the national holiday.
• Week for the Aged: September 15 to 21 week under the same welfare law, not part of the national holiday.

It was created as a national holiday in 1966 and fixed on September 15 through 2002. The old date reflected ceremony days since 1951 and the 1963 law naming September 15. The 2001 legal change moved it to the 3rd Monday of September from 2003 for more relaxed life with long weekends. So any source saying always September 15 is out of date, since after 2003 the date is always a Monday from September 15 to 21.

1. Base date: The date is the 3rd Monday of September in year Y, always September 15 to 21, with no weighting, seasonal adjustment, or sampling.
2. Substitute rule: If a national holiday falls on Sunday, the nearest later non-holiday weekday becomes a public holiday. It cannot trigger on the holiday itself, always a Monday.
3. Citizen's-holiday rule: A non-holiday weekday between 2 national holidays becomes a public holiday.
4. Illustrative example: Suppose the Monday is September 21 and the equinox holiday is September 23. Then Tuesday September 22 becomes a holiday, forming 3 weekday closures and a 5-day break with the weekend.