TPR Spotlight #1: Suicide in Japan by the Numbers
Saigo Takamori ended the Satsuma rebellion by committing seppuku. Hideki Tojo was criticized for using a pistol and failing in his suicide attempt in Sugamo prison after World War II. Yukio Mishima’s idealistic, idealized beauty Isao lays out the logic of suicide being the only honorable course a man could possibly pursue and later commits seppuku while watching the sun rise on the coast to end the novel Honda, and Mishima himself soon followed suit in less idyllic circumstances. Trains in Tokyo are often delayed by “human body accidents” and macabre humor has led to the coinage of terms such as “Chuo-cide” to describe stepping in front of a train on the busy commuter artery.
Passengers on the Tokyo Metro or Seibu Railway have surely noticed the mirrors on railway platforms. No, they’re not there to cater to the vanity of passengers - they’re there in the hope that being able to look at one’s own face will change the minds of those who would cause a “human body accident.” We hear of suicide pacts formed over the Internet and the rising popularity of charcoal stoves in parked cars as a method of dispatching oneself.
The Aokigahara woods at the base of Mount Fuji are supposedly well-populated with presumed suicide victims hanging from trees.
This past Fall, TPR joined the mainstream media in following what appeared to be a spike in bullying- related suicides among junior high school and high school students and the attendant controversies.
Kamikaze.
Since TPR first went on line, three acquaintances of ours have decided that life was not for them - the youngest 27 and the oldest 47.
What’s going on in Japan?
You’ve heard the arguments: Japan has a long tradition of suicide being viewed as honorable. The concept of face or honor is so strong that people can’t recover from massive failure or shameful actions. Social roles, being strict, great shame is attached to a failure to live up to expectations.
On top of this, despite it’s wealth, Japan does not have a happy populace. People are stressed or unhappy. Loveless marriages abound and even children are made to feel that their entire lives hinge on big tests. The stigma of failure can be attached early and at any time thereafter.
Then there’s the whole “good of society” thing, in which view an individual is just not always that important. People subconsciously make rational decisions for the good of the group, or sometimes even do it quite consciously. In debt? Laid off? Have a life insurance policy? A-ha.
Are these correct assumptions? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
First, the total number of suicides in Japan in 2005: 32,552
Next, a bit of raw data: Japan’s suicide rate, by age group, in 2001:
Ages 15 - 24: 8.6 per 100,000 people
Ages 25 - 34: 14.1 per 100,000 people
Ages 35 - 44: 16.2 per 100,000 people
Ages 45 - 54: 23.7 per 100,000 people
Ages 55 - 64: 26.7 per 100,000 people
Ages 65 - 74: 23.7 per 100,000 people
Ages 75 and up: 42.3 per 100,000 people
(Clicking the image to the left will bring up a full size version of the chart “Suicides per 100,000 People in Japan, by Age Group” in a new window)
It should be noted that these numbers indicate an increase since 1998, when the number of suicides leapt up by 8,500 - an increase of approximately 35% over 1997, almost entirely among men - and climbed until 2003 when 34,427 people committed suicide, pushing the rate up to nearly 27 per 100,000 people overall - the highest since such records were kept.
Since 2003, media sensations notwithstanding, the numbers appear to have fallen, although they are still higher than they were a decade ago.
Speculations into the reasons for such an occurrence are as fascinating as they are numerous, but are not the goal of this piece. The goal here is to put some numbers up to use a way of evaluating all the talk of suicide in Japan and to put some of these numbers in context. To do this, let’s take a look at some common assumptions about suicide in Japan.
Assumption #1: Japan has the highest suicide rate of any wealthy country.
Not true by any measure. However, I’m not merely trying to topple straw men here, so a look at where Japan fits in the rankings is in order.
It is often pointed out that Japan has the second-highest suicide rate, after Russia, in the G8. This factoid is well worth ignoring as there are, after all, eight countries in the G8 and Japan is not even at the top of that list.
What is worth a look are the comparative suicide rates among a larger group of wealthy countries. As the GECD (Gestion Economica de Centros Docentes Publicos) statistics include most countries in Japan’s income bracket, viz. Western Europe, North America, and Japan itself, let’s look at those. (For those who are interested, the Baltic countries top the list, which makes sense seeing as they are at the confluence of what appear to be three leading factors for suicide - more on that later, though.)
The highest position Japan fills in the GECD rankings for any age group is 7th, with 26.7 suicides per 100,000 people among those aged 55 - 64 and 42.3 per 100,000 among those 75 and over. The leader in the former age group is Finland, with 43.8, which leads in every age group from 25 to 64. (Finland is a cold country with an aging population - keep that in mind.) The latter age group is led by Austria with 57.1 suicides per 100,000 people. (Aging society.)
The lowest position Japan occupies in any age group is 13th, with 8.6 suicides per 100,000 among those aged 15 - 24. This age group is led by New Zealand, with 26.7 - the same rate as Japan’s highest rate among age groups under 75.
In fact, Austria, Finland, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Germany, and Denmark each have higher suicide rates among almost all age groups.
Assumption #2: Suicide is most common among troubled teenagers.
This is not true anywhere. As a general rule, suicide rates rise with age.
Assumption #3: Japan is different from other industrialized countries in that its suicides are concentrated among people in the primes of their lives.
Japan’s suicide rate does in fact increase rather sharply in middle age (over 45 years old), but other than a small swell for those aged 55 - 64, there is not the peak or spike in middle age that, obviously, would indicate suicides being concentrated among those in the pink of life. Those over 75, with 42.3, have far and away the highest suicide rate in Japan.
It is true, though, that Japan’s suicide rate climbs in comparison to other countries as age increases.
Assumption #4: Japan has a high suicide rate because its people are deeply unhappy.
While people who commit suicide are presumably unhappy, there is little to suggest that people in Japan are more than usually unhappy. In fact, 72% of people say they’re not. Only 14% of Japanese respondents to the oft-cited World Values Survey described themselves as “not very or not at all happy,” which means glum Japan has fewer unhappy people than Mexico (26%), Brazil (21%), or Italy (18%). Likewise, 72% of Japanese people described themselves as “quite happy” or “very happy.”
What does it mean?
While Japan may well have a “suicide culture” and does indeed seem to stigmatize it less than other industrialized nations, such assertions can only be anecdotal and, at first glance, are not borne out by the numbers, which rather strongly suggest otherwise, especially considering the fact that an overwhelming majority of people in Japan are happy, a condition unlikely to lead to suicide.
The simple conclusion that can be drawn is that there are two general trends influencing suicide rates. Generally speaking (but by no means always), the older a person is, the more likely he is to commit suicide. Following from this, the older a society is, the higher its suicide rate is likely to be (Austria, Finland, Switzerland, Germany - all have aging populations.) Last, and perhaps least intuitive, although by no means shocking, the colder a country is, or perhaps, the shorter its days in winter, the higher the suicide rate is likely to be.
There’s a lot more to be drawn from these numbers than I have written here and it would, of course, be rather easily possible to counter my inferences as well. Suicide is a rather prominent issue in Japan, though, and it is my hope that stepping back and taking a look at the actual numbers involved will foster a more accurate perception of what’s going on.
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