Japan to this day is reputed to be one of the countries with the highest suicide rate, but is that true? In this article, we are going to show that this is no longer true and how Japan ended up with half of 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 kill themselves working".
Disgusted by this misinformation and widespread news, I decided to write this article that will show in detail how Japan is no longer one of the countries with the highest number of suicides.
Before we start I would like to point out that Japan does have a high suicide rate, but not as people think. In fact, the point we want to make is how Japan halved that number.
This article is very big, I wanted to do a complete research and share all my opinion and data here. With that in mind, I will leave below a Summary and a Summary of the point I will highlight:
This article will highlight how Japan dropped its suicide rate per 100,000 from 35 to 17 and how it dropped from the top ten to 30th in the world suicide rankings.
Table of Content
Why is Japan famous for being a suicidal country?
Before we talk about data and history, we need to clear up a confusion that many rankings and internet searches make. There are two ways to calculate the number of suicides in a country, with the total and with the proportion.
I'm going to add that there are dozens of countries with a much higher suicide rate than Japan. The difference is that most of these countries are small, which results in a much lower total number of suicides.
Japan is among the 10 most populous countries in the world, despite being a small island, which incredibly has 80% of forests and mountains, and many giant houses, as most are concentrated in Tokyo.
Logically, even if Japan has a low proportion of suicides, your country will stand out in the total value for having 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, for having a reasonably high average, for being a first world country and for being a small country where things circulate.
There was a recent year that Japan had an average of 17 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants. What are 17 people out of 100,000? This results in a total of 21,000 suicides per year. Is this a high value?
Of course it is a high and unfortunate figure, but out of the 17 people we have 99,983 people who live in Japan normally with their lives without wanting to kill themselves. There's no reason to use such a number to denigrate the country's image.
How do the Japanese view suicide?
Culturally the Japanese have a suicidal history. The Japanese generally believe in the afterlife, reincarnation and deliverance, so for them suicide is kind of an option.
While the Christians who dominate the West believe that suicide is a sin and disrespect for life, the Samurais of Japan committed suicide with honor and pride by piercing their belly in seppuku.
Following the samurai culture, Japanese men who lose their jobs or get divorced end up feeling that they have dishonored themselves and their families and that suicide is the most honorable way out of the situation.
So much so that currently the problem itself is not the suicide rate but the people who commit suicide. Suicide is the main culprit for the number of deaths among 20-40 year olds.
I believe that the rate could be much lower if the Japanese were a little more sociable and not under so much pressure and were a little more carefree about things. Fortunately today the scenario has been like this!
The lack of psychological support is another thing that is lacking in Japan. They do not have the habit of consulting with psychologists and psychiatrists, or of doing therapies. 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 the second world war that Japan rose from the ashes. Many Japanese traumatized by the war ended up committing suicide in the meantime. Something that happens to this day, with many still alive.
Unfortunately this is not unique to Japan. In the United States, surveys reported that thousands of ex-soldiers committed suicide over the years. The consequences of war take centuries to fade.
In addition to the trauma of war, Japanese people suffered from 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 on many issues until the war came. As early as the 1960s, Japan had the highest suicide rate.
To end the economic problems, Japan began an intense campaign and investment in education and work. This made it the third largest economy in the world, but with consequences.
In the beginning this worked quite well, Japan managed to keep the rate low from the 90's until it reached an economic recession in 1998. This made the suicide rate skyrocket up to over 35%.
This is how Japan probably gained the reputation of being one of the countries with the highest suicide rate 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 a year. In those years of crisis, Japan always stood out first in the suicide rankings, but it was still never the highest.
Japan cut suicides in half
While Japan's suicide rate was close to 30 at the beginning of the century, today the rate is between 14 and 16 according to some surveys such as WHO. How was Japan able to pull off such a feat?
This has not only happened with suicides, Japan has been lowering the rate of crime, death and violence every year. The only things he hasn't been able to reduce are sexual harassment and bike theft.
All of this is thanks to the actions of the government that launched a nine-step plan in 2007 called "自殺対策白書". The plan was a success and since 2009 Japan has managed to reduce the number of suicides each year:
More than 10 billion a year was invested in order to decrease the country's suicide rate in order to lower the rate in 20%. The results were clear, Japan managed to almost halve the number of suicides.
The investment trained doctors, created a training of legal advisors to care for those who were unfairly indebted, took strong action against suicide websites, chat rooms and bulletins, and put an emphasis on depression treatments.
The workload has also been decreasing more and more. The government and some companies have discouraged workaholics from taking their vacation and not working too much overtime.
A measure was even stipulated as it limits the amount of overtime worked in the week and month. Unfortunately, some factories and offices end up circumventing this law by using some loopholes as unpaid work.
It is common to find Japanese people doing nothing most of the time. This idea that Japanese people die of working, despite having a basis of truth, I also claim to be a little exaggerated and does not cover the majority.
There is still a long way to go, but financial conditions have improved in Japan over the course of this decade. We do not know how the population will react in the face of 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 is close to 12.
Japan in the Suicide Ranking
Before talking about rankings I wanted to point out that they are imprecise. Researching different rankings I found very different numbers in the same year in relation to some countries. Working with estimates is kind of weird.
To deny Japan's position in the suicide ranking, let's take a look at the world rankings. Currently, there are more than 30 countries with higher suicide rates than Japan according to WHO. Follow the list below:
Responsive Table: Scroll the table sideways with your finger >>
1 | Guyana | 30.2 |
2 | Lesotho | 28.9 |
3 | Rússia | 26.5 |
4 | Lithuania | 25.7 |
5 | Suriname | 23.2 |
6 | Ivory Coast | 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 | Nigéria | 17.3 |
16 | latvia | 17.2 |
17 | swaziland | 16.7 |
18 | Taiwan | 16.65 |
18 | Togo | 16.6 |
19 | Índia | 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 Green | 15.1 |
27 | Burundi | 15.0 |
28 | Burkina Faso | 14.8 |
29 | Estonia | 14.4 |
30 | Japan | 14.3 |
It's incredible, Japan was already at 32 and now it's 14.3. Of course, it's still not a reason to be proud, this number needs to decrease even more, if possible to be less than 10 per 100,000 inhabitants.
We can see that despite Japan being thirtieth on the list, it is one of the richest countries on it. Yet there are developed countries on the list like South Korea and Russia.
We must point out that there are rich and developed countries that are dragging on the side of 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 of the countries in the ranking are located in Africa. Even the Americas appear before Africa in the ranking of the highest suicide rate by continent.
Suicides in Brazil is higher than in Japan?
Although Japan has cut the number of suicides in half, it is still high, being one of the highest among first world countries. Fortunately, let's hope he continues lowering, soon he passes the US.
Now I want to comment on something that bothered me and made me write this article. People love to cite the suicide factor to denigrate Japan's image and say that Japanese people are not happy.
Of course, it is undeniable that suicides in Japan still occur in high numbers, up to 30% more than in Brazil. Even so, if we compare the total number of suicides, Brazil may have a higher number.
Not that the total amount makes any sense, as Brazil has almost twice the population of Japan. Even so, Brazil is not in a position to criticize Japan for its high suicide rate when it is worse off.
Brazilians commit suicide in other ways, indulging in violent practices and drug addictions that result in their own death or the death of other innocent people. Despite all the problems related to security in Brazil, thousands of Brazilians live happily in the country.
In the same way that 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 the country in a negative way because of the number of suicides.
In the same way that Brazilians are used to so many problems and do not feel so much impact with recurrent tragedies, the Japanese are used to the suicides that occur in society.
I think that every country has its problems, but we cannot let something negative affect our way of life, nor let it become a fear or weakness. Each one has its reality, we should not rely on others.
Imagine if the Japanese were as afraid of earthquakes and tsunamis as Brazilians are when talking about Japan? There is a saying that it is easier for someone to be run over by a cow in Japan than in a tsunami.
In the same way that nobody likes it when we classify Brazilians as thieves, there is no reason to rate Japanese as suicides, as this does not cover the reality of most citizens who live their lives as happy and good people.
Anyway, Brazil needs to stop looking at others and try to solve the growing problems of depression, suicide numbers, robberies and murders that have been rising every year in the country.
I hope this article didn't get a little biased or confusing, my only goal is to end the generalization that people spread on the internet. I hope you liked it, if possible share it with as many people as possible and leave your comments.