Elderly Japanese in rash of suicides

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-20  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

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 yesterday.

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 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," said 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 egalitarian. The number of Japanese aged 65 or older hit a record high of more than 27 million, 21.5 percent of the population, in 2007.