How did Japan reduce half of the suicides?

Japan still has the reputation of being one of the countries with the highest suicide rates, but is that true? In this article, we will show that this is no longer true and how Japan has halved its suicides.

Whenever good news about Japan is published on social media, some unfortunate person comments things like “in Japan people commit suicide” or “in Japan people work themselves to death“.

Outraged by this misinformation and widespread news, I decided to write this article that will detail how Japan ceased to be one of the countries with the highest number of suicides.

Before we begin, I would like to highlight that Japan does have a high suicide rate, but not in the way people think. In fact, the point we want to highlight is how Japan has cut that number in half.

This article is very long; I wanted to conduct thorough research and share all my opinions and data here. With that in mind, I will leave a Summary and an Overview of the points I will highlight below:

This article will highlight how Japan reduced the suicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants from 35 to 17 and how it fell from the top ten to the thirtieth position in the global suicide ranking.

Why does Japan have a reputation for being a suicidal country?

Before we talk about data and history, we need to clear up a confusion that many rankings and surveys on the internet make. There are two ways to calculate the number of suicides in a country, with the total and with the proportion.

I will already mention that there are dozens of countries with a suicide rate much higher than Japan’s. The difference is that most of these countries are small, resulting in a much lower total number of suicides.

Japan, on the other hand, is among the 10 most populous countries in the world, despite being a small island that incredibly has 80% forests and mountains, and many giant houses, as most are concentrated in Tokyo.

Logically, even if Japan has a low proportional average of suicides, its country will stand out in total value because it has 127 million people. Not to mention that Japan is a first-world country.

It is obvious that the media will always use Japan as an example of suicides, due to its relatively high average, being a first-world country, and being a small country where things circulate.

There was a recent year when Japan had an average of 17 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants. What are 17 people among 100,000? This results in a total of 21,000 suicides per year. Is that a high number?

Of course, it is a high and unfortunate number, but out of those 17 people, we have 99,983 people living in Japan normally, wanting to live their lives without wanting to kill themselves. There is no reason to use such a number to tarnish the country’s image.

How do Japanese people view suicide?

Culturally, the Japanese have a history of suicide. Japanese people generally believe in life after death, reincarnation, and liberation, so for them, suicide ends up being an option.

While Christians who dominate the West believe that suicide is a sin and a disrespect to life. The samurai of Japan committed suicide with honor and pride by stabbing their bellies in seppuku.

Following the samurai culture, Japanese men, when losing their jobs or getting divorced, end up feeling that they have dishonored themselves and their families, and that suicide is the most honorable way to exit the situation.

In fact, currently, the problem is not even the suicide rate but the people who commit suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people aged 20 to 40 years.

I believe the rate could be much lower if the Japanese were a little more sociable and didn’t suffer so much pressure and were a bit more carefree about things. Fortunately, today the scenario has been improving!

The lack of psychological support is another thing that is lacking in Japan. They do not have the habit of consulting psychologists and psychiatrists, nor of undergoing therapy. This absence can also negatively affect the Japanese.

How did Japan become one of the countries with the highest number of suicides?

It was after World War II that Japan rose from the ashes. Many Japanese traumatized by the war ended up committing suicides during that time. Something that still happens today, with many still alive.

Unfortunately, this is not exclusive to Japan. In the United States, research reported that thousands of veterans committed suicide over the years. The consequences of war take centuries to disappear.

In addition to the trauma of war, Japanese people suffered the trauma of the nuclear bomb, food shortages, economic crisis, devastation, and some earthquakes and tsunamis that took the lives of loved ones.

Before the 1940s, Japan had a very low suicide rate because the country was doing well in various matters until the arrival of the war. By the 1960s, Japan had the highest suicide rate.

To solve the economic problems, Japan began an intense campaign and investment in education and work. This transformed it into the third-largest economy in the world, but with consequences.

In the beginning, this worked quite well; Japan managed to maintain a low rate from the 1990s until it hit an economic recession in 1998. This caused the suicide rate to spike by over 35%.

That is how Japan probably gained the reputation of being one of the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world. At that time, the number in some surveys exceeded 30 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

There were years when the number of suicides in Japan approached 40,000 per year. In those years of crisis, Japan always stood out first in the suicide rankings, but it has never been the highest.

Japan halved its suicides

While Japan’s suicide rate hovered around 30 at the beginning of the century, today the rate is between 14 and 16 according to some surveys like WHO. How was Japan able to achieve such a feat?

This has not only happened with suicides; Japan has been lowering its crime, death, and violence rates every year. The only things it has not managed to reduce are sexual harassment and bicycle thefts.

All of this is thanks to government actions that launched a nine-step plan in 2007 called “White Paper Against Suicide“. The plan was a success, and since 2009, Japan has managed to reduce the number of suicides each year:

More than 10 billion was invested annually to reduce the country’s suicide rate by 20%. The results were clear; Japan managed to reduce the number of suicides by almost half.

The investment trained doctors, created a training program for legal consultants to help those who were unjustly indebted, took strong measures against websites, chat rooms, and bulletins about suicide, and emphasized treatments for depression.

The working hours have also been decreasing more and more. The government and some companies have discouraged workaholics from taking their vacations and not working too many overtime hours.

A measure was even established that limits the number of overtime hours worked in a week and a month. Unfortunately, some factories and offices end up circumventing such laws by using loopholes like unpaid work.

It is common to find Japanese people idle most of the time. This idea that Japanese people die from working, although it has a grain of truth, I also affirm is a bit exaggerated and does not encompass the majority.

There is still a long way to go, but financial conditions have improved in Japan over this decade. We do not know how the population will react to another financial crisis.

Although the number is falling, there are poor countries like the Philippines that have a much lower suicide rate below 5. Unfortunately, Brazil does not serve as an example, as Brazil’s rate hovers around 12.

Japan in the Suicide Ranking

Before talking about the rankings, I wanted to highlight that they are imprecise. Researching various rankings, I found very different numbers in the same year regarding some countries. Working with estimates is somewhat strange.

To debunk Japan’s position in the suicide ranking, let’s analyze the global rankings a bit. Currently, there are more than 30 countries with higher suicide rates than Japan according to WHO. Here is the list below:

1	Guyana	30.2
2	Lesotho	28.9
3	Russia	26.5
4	Lithuania	25.7
5	Suriname	23.2
6	Côte d’Ivoire	23.0
7	Kazakhstan	22.8
8	Equatorial Guinea	22.0
9	Belarus	21.4
10	South Korea	20.2
11	Uganda	20.0
12	Cameroon	19.5
13	Zimbabwe	19.1
14	Ukraine	18.5
15	Nigeria	17.3
16	Latvia	17.2
17	Eswatini	16.7
18	Taiwan	16.65
18	Togo	16.6
19	India	16.5
19	Uruguay	16.5
21	Sierra Leone	16.1
22	Benin	15.7
22	Belgium	15.7
24	Chad	15.5
25	Kiribati	15.2
26	Cape Verde	15.1
27	Burundi	15.0
28	Burkina Faso	14.8
29	Estonia	14.4
30	Japan	14.3

It’s incredible, Japan was once at 32 and is now at 14.3. Of course, this is still not a reason to be proud; this number needs to decrease even more, ideally to below 10 per 100,000 inhabitants.

We can notice that despite Japan being thirtieth on the list, it is one of the richest countries present on it. Still, there are developed countries on the list like South Korea and Russia.

We should highlight that there are rich and developed countries that are trailing behind Japan. The United States has 13.7, Finland has 13.8, and several other European countries are around 13.

In fact, Europe is the continent with the highest number of suicides, even though most countries in the ranking are located in Africa. Even the Americas appear before Africa in the ranking of the highest suicide rates by continent.

Are suicides in Brazil higher than in Japan?

Although Japan has halved the number of suicides, it is still high, being one of the highest among first-world countries. Fortunately, let’s hope it continues to decrease, soon surpassing the USA.

Now I want to comment on something that bothered me and made me write this article. People love to cite the suicide factor to tarnish Japan’s image and say that Japanese people are not happy.

It is clear that it is undeniable that suicides in Japan still occur at a high number, about 30% more than in Brazil. Still, if we compare the total number of suicides, Brazil may have a higher number.

Not that the total number makes any sense, since Brazil has almost double the population of Japan. Still, Brazil is not in a position to criticize Japan for its high suicide rate when it is in a worse situation.

Brazilian people commit suicide in other ways, resorting to violent practices and drug addictions that result in their own death or the death of other innocents. Despite all the security problems in Brazil, thousands of Brazilians live happily in the country.

Just as many Brazilians love their country and would not abandon it despite the terrible conditions and the small probability of being murdered, there is no reason for the Japanese to view life in their country negatively because of the suicide numbers.

Just as Brazilians are used to so many problems and do not feel much impact from recurring tragedies, the Japanese have gotten used to the suicides that occur in society.

I think every country has its problems, but we cannot let something negative affect our way of life, nor let it become a fear or weakness. Everyone has their reality; we should not base ourselves on others.

Imagine if the Japanese were afraid of earthquakes and tsunamis like Brazilians are when talking about Japan? There is a saying that says it is easier for someone to be killed by a cow in Japan than in a tsunami.

Just as no one likes it when we label Brazilians as criminals, there is no reason to label Japanese people as suicidal, as this does not encompass the reality of the majority of citizens who live their happy and good lives.

In any case, Brazil needs to stop looking at others and try to solve the growing problems of depression, suicide numbers, thefts, and murders that have been rising every year in the country.

I hope this article has not been a bit biased or confusing; my only goal is to end the generalization that people spread on the internet. I hope you enjoyed it; if possible, share it with as many people as possible and leave your comments.