Japan's Elderly See A Surge In Suicides

Mounting Health And Economic Worries Fuel A Rising Wave Of Despair Among Japan's Oldest

(AP)  The number of elderly Japanese killing themselves surged 9 percent to a record high last year, fueled by mounting health and economic worries among seniors in a rapidly aging society, the government said Thursday.

The rash of elderly deaths helped push the country's overall number of suicides to 33,093 in 2007, a 2.9 percent increase and the second-highest annual tally on record, the National Police Agency said in a yearly report.

Japanese aged 60 and over were the fastest growing age group among suicide cases, jumping by 987 last year to 12,107 deaths, an increase of 8.9 percent from 2006. The age group made up 36.6 percent of all suicides in Japan in 2007.

The number of elderly suicides eclipsed the previous record high of 11,529 in 2003.

Health trouble was listed as the reason in 56 percent of the elderly deaths last year and economic worries were second, figuring in 15 percent of cases, the study said.

"For those aged above 60, economic and health reasons were closely linked. The figure underlined the fact that many old people were financially struggling, which could easily cause poor health," Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor at Chuo University in Tokyo.

Japan's society is rapidly aging, straining pension and national health care systems and exacerbating a widening income gap in a country that has long considered itself uniquely egalitarian.

The number of Japanese aged 65 or older hit a record high of more than 27 million in 2007, or 21.5 percent of the population, the government reported in May. Those 75 or older accounted for nearly 10 percent.

The second-largest age group in the suicide study were Japanese in their 50s, accounting for 21.3 percent of the total, though the number dropped 2.8 percent in 2007 to 7,046 cases, the police agency said.

Health problems were believed to factor in 44 percent of the total suicides in 2007, followed by economic and household difficulties, which accounted for 22 percent, the survey said. No reason was known in 30 percent of the cases.

Depression alone was believed to cause nearly 20 percent of Japan's suicides last year, it said.

Japan has long battled its stubbornly high suicide rate, the ninth highest in the world. The government has earmarked US$220 million for anti-suicide programs to help those with depression and other mental health problems.

Last year, it also set a goal of cutting the suicide rate by 20 percent in 10 years through steps such as reducing unemployment, boosting workplace counseling and filtering Web sites that promote suicide.

Japan is now in the grip of a new wave of suicides from mixing commonly available chemicals to form deadly hydrogen sulfide gas. Police said 517 people have killed themselves so far this year by inhaling such fumes, the latest in a series of suicides fads in Japan. That far surpasses the 29 hydrogen suicides last year.

[andrewgrimes]

I am a JSCCP clinical psychologist and JFP psychotherapist working in Japan for over 20 years. I would like to put forward a perspective on some of the main reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide numbers Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know about here in Japan

Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the reason for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan is due to unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.

The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless the new administration initiates very proactive and well funded local and nationwide suicide prevention programs and other mental health care initiatives, including tackling the widespread problem of clinical depression suffered by so many of the general population, it is very difficult to foresee the previous government's stated target to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 as being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal briquettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) and mirrors at stations, and now lights at stations, without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions.

Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.

I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese people have very high reading skills in English that any articles (or works of fiction which I appreciate this is) dealing with suicide in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hotlines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal.

Useful telephone numbers and links for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal:
Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)?

Japan: 0120-738-556
Tokyo: 3264 4343

Tokyo Counseling Services:
http://tokyocounseling.com/english/
http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/

http://www.counselingjapan.com

[keithle1]

"The second-largest age group in the suicide study were Japanese in their 50s, accounting for 21.3 percent of the total"

Being in your 50''s is not that old. Back when I was 21, it was but not now. Your body shouldn''t be breaking down that much then, no? Maybe if they have cancer or major heart problems.

I don''t want to spend 20 years in a nursing home. You need the time when you''re young. When you can enjoy life. Who wants to be 90 sitting in a nursing home looking forward to dinner & then sleep? Same thing day after day after day. Can''t read a book or enjoy watching TV. Everything is painful or a problem. Going through money.

[oneworldusa]

Kevorkian, anyone?

[rushlimpdrug]

Japanese, historically a very honerable people. And they still are.
Posted by oledakota at 12:11 PM


1. You aren''t to bright.

2. You believe everything you are told.

[spadeisspade]

Hey Baby Boomers, take a hint! We could cure our Social Security crisis with those kinds of numbers!

By the way, if you are REALLY dumb, that was a totally tongue-in-cheek statement; don''t waste your time trying to formulate a likely misspelled, swear laden reproach

[sociald63]

hey - has the US govt ever do a study to see how many people committed suicide after eating sushi!!?? just wondering

[sociald63]

hey haoli25 - dibs on thier hondas & toyotas :)

[extremophil]

All those suicides. It has to be SOMEBODYS fault, right? Now who can we sue...............

[lovemy3boys]

Don''t you think that some of Japan''s problems are because of their "extreme" work ethic? I mean, the kids there go to school year round w/2 week breaks I think periodically. THEY HAVE NO LIFE! As they get older, they realize what''s really important is not $$ but companionship, love, family, etc. They are SO competitive in everything (sports, meaning Olympics, exports, business, etc). They even have their own stock exchange.

I just think their lives are way too stressful and they don''t know how to have fun. From children on, they are taught to work, work, work, study, study, study...what kind of life is that?

I''d probably opt for suicide too if that''s all my life was about.

[johnpatrick9]

Absolutely it is bush''s fault for creating a generally negative feeling all over Planet Earth...I mean that is just a given. How does he sleep at night??