Suicide in Japan: Part Nine - Suicides Reach Record High in 2003

J. Sean Curtin (Fellow, GLOCOM)

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.

This is the first in a series of articles examining the latest suicide statistics.

The newly released suicide figures for 2003 paint an exceedingly grim picture, showing a record 34,427 Japanese men and women took their own lives last year. According to statistics published by the National Police Agency (NPA) on 22 July 2004, the number of suicides has increased by 7.1 percent or 2,284 more lives lost than in 2002. Many people believe the long recession is a key factor behind the rise. Every day nearly 100 Japanese take their own lives at a rate of almost one every 15 minutes.

Suicide has now become a deadly epidemic, striking at every single stratum of society and encompassing all age groups. As in other countries, men are far more likely to take their own lives than women, presently accounting for a staggering 73 percent of all suicides in Japan. Suicide by the elderly, 33.5 percent, and by people with financial problems, 25.8 percent, account for the two largest non-gender groupings. There has also been an alarming surge in the number of children committing suicide.

To put the latest data in context, in today's Japan you are about 4.5 times more likely to die by your own hand than be killed in a traffic accident. In the UK the same ratio is 1.7 times.

Japanese suicide rates have been high since 1998, when a surge in bankruptcies and unemployment generated a big upswing in people taking their lives for financial reasons. In the decade leading up to 1997, the number of people who killed themselves hovered in a relatively low range of between 15,000 to 25,000 a year. In 1998, suicide broke the 30,000 threshold and has remained high ever since.

Elderly suicides highest
As in previous surveys, the highest incidence of suicide was found amongst the elderly. The new NPA data registers a record 11,529 people aged 60 years or older as having taken their own lives in 2003. This group accounted for an astonishing 33.5 percent of all cases, and was closely followed by people in their fifties who represented 8,614 cases or 25 percent of all suicides.

The new statistics also marked a steep increase in the number of people in their thirties taking their own lives. The death toll for this age bracket reached 4,603, an increase of 17 percent, translating into 668 more cases than in the previous year.

The NPA determined that health-related problems were the predominant motive behind the majority of elderly suicides. According to the NPA statistics for 2003, a total of 15,416 people from all age groups killed themselves because of illness or health-related problems, representing an increase of 4.1 percent from the previous year.

Financially-related suicides up
The latest figures also reveal that there were 8,897 money-related suicides, a rise of 12.1 percent from the 2002 level. This translates into an additional 957 deaths and marks the first time ever the 8,000 barrier has been exceeded for this category.

The NPA statistics attributed money problems as accounting for about 25.8 percent of all suicide cases. Of these, 5,043 cases were classified as being due to difficulty in paying debts, an increase of 900 or 21.7 percent. A further 1,321 cases, a rise of 153, were classified as due to other kinds of financial difficulties such as bankruptcies or poor business performance.

Suicide due to failure to gain employment totaled 183 people, up 18.1 percent from 2002. Although Japan's long recession appears to be finally ending, the financial turmoil and despair it has created shows little sign of abating.

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.

Related links

National Police Agency Suicide Report for 2003 (PDF Japanese)

Suicide also rises in the land of the rising sun
J. Sean Curtin, Asia Times, 3 July 2004

(Some parts of this article first appeared in Asia Times Online on 28 July 2004, http://www.atimes.com, and all those sections are republished with permission. Copyright of these particular section belongs to Asia Times Online Ltd.)