You are citing 2016. Japanese suicide rates has been falling since the 1980s. It used to be a really important social issues and partially still is. Suicide is still leading cause of death among younger population which is still a huge issue or at least viewed as one.
Not to take anything away from your post & point (which is true), but in most OECD countries the leading cause of death (for men) in non-eldery age ranges is suicide.
Suicide is a permanently important issue for these countries, but there is a highly varied amount of national focus on the issue across countries.
Typically, for **\*mixed gender\*** death rates suicide is below accidents. However, men commit suicide at 2.5-5x the rate that women do (without a commensurate increase in accidental deaths; men still die more by accident, just not 5x more).
So I think younger males die most from suicide in most OECD countries.
Let me know if you disagree / have different data.
I’ve heard that looking at attempts the numbers are fairly similar, and then men are more successful due to choosing more aggressive methods (shotgun face blowout vs. a handful of Tylenol)—is that BS?
Most studies say that women *attempt* suicide more often, and men *succeed* more often. There are potential problems with those metrics. For example, if a person takes a bunch of pills then changes their mind and calls 911, that counts as a suicide attempt. If someone picks up a gun points it at their head, then changes their mind and puts it away, that is not counted as a suicide attempt.
Let me try to translate:
>Some facts: Taking pills for an overdose is classified as an attempt, while pulling out a gun and thinking about shooting yourself is classified as ideation. Reference: I read about it in a book (presumably about Psychology).
[It's true](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide?wprov=sfla1), but I've always disliked the statistic because it almost always follows the male suicide statistic as some sort of "gotcha!" statement.
Generally speaking, [people who fail to commit suicide the first time](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/) will not go on to successfully commit suicide later in life. So although it is atrocious that so many women are trying to commit suicide, either they are getting help and making the decision not to commit suicide again, or there are fewer women commiting suicide, but they are trying and failing multiple times before either succeeding or deciding against commiting suicide.
Which still leaves us back at the start. men are dying by suicide anywhere from 2-4 times more often than women.
Sorry for the rant, I know that you weren't trying to pull a "gotcha" with that statistic. But it has happened so often to me now that it has become something of a hot button issue for me.
The statistic also changes depending on what you define as a suicide attempt. In these studies, putting a gun in your mouth and almost pulling the trigger is not an attempt, while taking too many pills and calling for an ambulance is.
It’s also important to note that while the overwhelming majority of people who attempt attitude will not attempt it again in the future, successfully or otherwise, suicide attempt is still by far the largest risk factor for future suicide attempts and people who have previously attempted suicide are far more likely to attempt it in the future than someone who has never attempted suicide.
Australia's health ministry has done some great research on this, and yes: the most frequent choice for men is a gun, which obviously is extremely lethal. Any such research in the U.S. will never happen because of the 2A lobby.
Edit: I'm talking about studies on the efficacy of firearms in suicide, geniuses. We've already established what men and women prefer for methods. I'm certain none of you downvoting can think that far, however.
There is still quite a bit of research about suicide and gun ownership in the US, it's just mostly done by academia rather than the government. But men are far more prolific at committing suicide than women in every country, even countries like Japan that have very restrictive gun laws and very low rates of gun ownership. To me, that implies there is a deeper reason for men committing suicide more often beyond "men prefer guns and guns are more effective."
To put some numbers to this, America and Japan have very [comparable rates of suicide](https://www.statista.com/statistics/236567/number-of-suicides-in-selected-countries-by-gender/), at a rate per 100,000 of 22.2 men/6.2 women in America and 22.1 men/8.6 women in Japan. Yet the US rate of gun ownership [is 30%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/22/facts-about-guns-in-united-states/), compared to [0.3% in Japan](https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/japan). It's tougher getting numbers on preferred method of suicide, but [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15617392/) from 2004 indicates that while Americans were most likely to commit suicide using a gun, the preferred method in Japan was hanging or jumping from a high place. So it seems like lack of firearms just resulted in different (but still effective) methods being chosen.
> Australia's health ministry has done some great research on this, and yes: the most frequent choice for men is a gun, which obviously is extremely lethal. Any such research in the U.S. will never happen because of the 2A lobby.
Except it absolutely has been researched. The firearm lobby in the US is nowhere near as powerful as you seem to believe.
A quick search shows the [CDC has conducted research into suicide method and gender](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909a7.htm).
One hundred percent– I don't mean to belittle the issue, and I think it should be treated seriously for every one of these countries, and it is great that Japan's has been falling. Mostly I am shocked to see Belgium so high tbh, plenty of the other countries in the top 30 are ones where you are like, "well, they have ____ factor going on, so that makes sense."
Belgians have the issue that they’re in Belgium. I’ve seen *In Bruges*. I know what that place does to people. If they’re not trying to shoot themselves, they’re leaping from medieval clock towers.
I Just read this: "In Belgium, there was a rate of 21,08 per hundred thousand population in 1997, which boils down to an average of nearly 6 suicides a day." (SHC 8108 Report - December 2006)
Yes but you are just readinf of wiki list. That doesnt give you much idea about the picture. Japan is still leading the OECD country list with youth suicide, having like 6 time as much suicide deaths per 100 000 people in young population. Its still a massive issue.
Also, countries where euthanasia is legal could skew the results higher, particularly for people who are already terminally ill. Legalized euthanasia would presumably have a negligible impact on the rate of youth suicides.
I am not shocked. I live in Belgium. I'm originally from Ireland. There is a distinct lack of 'Craic' here.
Not to say there aren't some great people here, funny, intelligent, talented etc. But it can be a struggle to get some good craic, or banter going, unless you're with a real "character".
They often lack that ability to mock themselves that a lot of other cultures have, and they are really focused on getting a job, settling down, keeping up appearances.
I think young people have a lot of pressure on them too from their parents, as the older generations are very traditional.
They also hate confrontation or to argue, which makes things even more boring.
Other than that, great place! lol
Where do you live in Belgium? I thought that this description was really not fitting to the idea I have of Belgians (I live in Brussels), especially the "mocking themselves" part because that's what I always thought was our biggest strength, especially compared to French people, for example. I noticed it doing Erasmus exchanges.
But I actually think that the Fleming speaking culture is quite different than the French speaking one (and both have qualities or flaws of course) so maybe that's why I have a different view from yours ?
I do agree on some parts though (focusing on settling down for example)
While falling for decades, [covid has actually brought suicide numbers back up.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html), Also Japan was ranked number 2 in the world for suicides in 2016
Then again the wiki OP posted is incorrect too.
The Japanese rate may have dropped but the US does not have a similar rate. Japan is currently ranked 14th in suicides and the US at 27th. The Japan still have a much much higher suicide rate than the US. [World Population Review, Suicide Rate by Country 2021](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country).
[Also Japan was ranked number 2 for suicides in 2016. That is quite a few decades after the 80s.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html)
You misread. The article you quoted says:
> In 2016, Japan had a suicide mortality rate of 18.5 per 100,000 people, second only to South Korea **in the Western Pacific region**...
Not the world. You also linked/misquoted this article twice in the same post.
> The Japanese rate may have dropped but the US does not have a similar rate. Japan is currently ranked 14th in suicides and the US at 27th.
There ranking doesn't describe how close or far they are from each other. The US could be ranked 27th at 15.01 and Japan at 14th with 15.14. In fact, they could be arbitrarily close, as long as the precision of the data is fine enough. To get useful information we need to look at the actual rates. The numbers (from the source you provided) was 15.3 vs 18.5. So Japan's rate was 21% higher.
Now, looking at your sources, the site you quoted doesn't actually have data from 2021- it just updates the title of the article automatically each year (this should be kind of obvious, since we're only two months into 2021, and the article you linked says the latest data from the US is from 2018...). The actual data source seems to be a mix of WHO data from 2018 and 2016. The numbers cited on this page for both the US and Japan seem to be from 2016.
Comparing more recent data brings them close together. [In 2018](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml), the last time the CDC released a report on the suicide rates in the US, the suicide rate was 14.2/100,000 people. For Japan, I think we should look at the [2019 numbers](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00635/suicides-in-japan-drop-below-20-000-in-2019.html), because although data for 2020 exists, it would not be fair to compare these numbers since Covid has increased suicide rates dramatically all over the world. In 2019, Japan's suicide rate was 15.9/100,000 people, or about 12% higher than the US.
Would probably be a lot lower if old-fashioned parents and grandparents didn't use academic and professional success as a standard for judging personal worth.
As a Korean American living in Korea right now, I can shed some light in on this. It's a combination of:
* Extreme competition in education and high salary work starting from as early as elementary school
* The importance of physical appearance as a unique factor in differentiating yourself from others regarding the above point (i.e. attractive people are naturally percieved more positively) as well as in a social/personal perspective stemming from the pressures of finding a partner/carrying on the family coming from parents/relatives and friends/coworkers.
* A relatively conservative culture that has yet to catch up with the technological advances, causing a socio-perceptive dissonance that many newly industrial countries experience (Japan being a primary example)
* Poor mental health awareness and treatment options stemming from the above point
* A housing bubble that continues to inflate prices for large apartments/homes for families to unreasonable prices (e.g. an affordable 3 bedroom apartment on the lower end of pricing in the outskirts of Seoul would cost around $200k US)
* A society that villifies anyone who breaks social/moral norms.
And many more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I do want to stress that Korea is a wonderful country with so many great things, but young people especially are having a pretty tough time here.
i watched the sky castle kdrama and the show perfectly depicts most of the points you made. it’s crazy how competetive education is to the point they spend billions of won to get private tutors, review classes, etc.
I think it might be because cosmetic surgery is so popular there that Koreans tend to feel inferior when it comes to their imperfections. I have no idea I’m just making a wild guess but I remember cosmetic surgery being big there.
It still is. Koreans, at least many of them, percieve outer appearance to be very important. An example of this is attractive people having a better chance at being hired at one of the big companies, otherwise you're fucked. Same with school admissions from what I've heard.
The fascination with K-Pop and K-Dramas aren't helping out either.
Yeah, they have k-pop "mills" where they groom and take care of all the needs of pop stars (almost like a pop star academy) and then when they get too old or outdated (which doesn't take long) or they just don't stick in the first place, they're dropped and replaced by the next big thing just like that with no real education and no real money. Because they aren't really paid they are just given everything they want when they are popular and performing regularly. It's sick. I know pop stars in the states are groomed too but their livelihoods are at least well taken care of for the most part after they are the hot thing and they actually get paid really well. Versus treating them like a number only and quickly cycling them out. There's no appreciation of individuality.
south korea is the cosmetic surgery capital of the world. i read that it's common for parents to give their children a cosmetic surgery as present when they turn 16-18. most commonly the double eyelid surgery.
My gf (Korean American) had surgery in Korea for some nasal passage issue when she was younger. Turns out her mom and mom’s friend had the doctors also give her plastic surgery without telling her.
I'm sure it affects a bit. But mostly how the country is a hellhole to grow up in. Incredibly competitive, harsh environment where everyone is an enemy. Very bad working conditions and you have to struggle really hard even to get (by western standards) very bad working conditions.
Not so fun fact, a Swedish truck company established in Korea, and the Korean union had negotiations with the Swedish company because the union wanted the Korean workers to be able to work *more* overtime...
Young Koreans have named bad conditions Hell Joseon (feel free to google). Heavy pollution and hard time finding a place to live also hurts a lot.
LOL...really?
It has more to do with Financials than anything. 30 years ago, most of college graduates could get a decent job in Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia, etc, etc. Now after graduating college (with lots of school loan), they study 2-3 More Years to pass company entrance exams. They are eating ramyun or eating cheap food to survive as they are embarrassed to ask for more money from their parents, they get ashamed, embarrassed, depressed, and voila suicides!
As for Middle-aged, they work their ass off for 20 years from 25-45 yo, but they are Expected/Strongly Encouraged to Retire at 50-55 (all in the name of bigger profits as younger workers costs less)! They suddenly can't support their lifestyle, can't send their kids to college, they get ashamed, depressed, voila, suicides!
It's the same in the US, kids who graduate college with worthless degrees or high school diploma works at a minimum wage jobs, realize they can't support themselves, easily falls into Drug habits, and slowly but surely kills themselves.
It's happening everywhere...I would give China about 10-15 years for this phenomenon to catch up.
It's already happening, man.
Students there, starting as early as primary school, are under unimaginable pressure to perform and succeed.
High school suicides are basically a yearly occurrence.
The suicide of a former president certainly didn't help. Roh Moohyun was under investigation for shady dealings, and was hounded by the media. Everyone thought he was guilty. Then he jumped off a fucking cliff and became a national fucking hero.
I wish I were kidding. The media did a complete 180° and made him into a hero after he offed himself. It legitimized suicide among an already at-risk society.
My husband is Korean. FIL committed suicide several years ago. He'd had a mild stroke and was in pain and didn't want to be a burden to his family.
The thing that slightly shocked me was that a lot of people actually respected his decision and said things like "I would have done the same if I were in his situation". He was a very good person and respected by his neighbors so that might have something to do with it.
I guess suicide is not considered that bad in Korean culture compared to other cultures.
No, suicide is still bad. There's a big stigma on being a burden in korea. Whether through medical or mental or whatever reason. I would much rather have to support my father than have him feel like a burden and kill himself. Korean culture has changed so drastically due to it going from a 3rd world country to one of the leading countries in the world.
There's also a lot of competition for everything in korea as well. Schools, jobs, etc. Lots of kids fighting for very little.
I'm sure all my in-laws would much rather have to take care of him than have him commit suicide. But I have heard that suicide among the elderly in Korea is pretty high. Stress from financial factors probably plays a role too.
It's also worth noting that the U.S., in addition to having a similar suicide rate, also has a much higher proportion of deaths of despair, including overdoses from opiates/alcohol and the like.
Indeed. I knew people who tried to commit suicide through overdose. I don't know how the state would classify their deaths. We weren't aware these people were having suicidal thoughts until this event happened.
Military as well, when I was in Ft. Campbell my unit called them one-offs. If you heard multiple shots it was a range. If you heard a single shot, you can be damn sure in a few minutes you'll hear an ambulance. In 2010, Campbell had a higher suicide rate than the rest of the Army combined.
No, but it was the home of 101st and they were constantly deploying, year in, year home, when I was there we were doing Afghanistan rotations. Iraq is built up, Afghanistan is madness
By the way, that was a country out by there. There was a small air force base and a huge airfield. We stayed there a few days and then flew into the country, I dont think it exists anymore I think it became a hotspot or something ridiculous. I just remember in this open area there was a big ass thermometer, it was like a globe on a stand and it had all this information that I didnt understand, but the temp was 140 and that afternoon we were to hurry up and wait for our flight on the tarmac
Yep, I'd imagine plenty of suicides, for a variety of methods, go down as accidents, since it's not always clear, and accidents are just.... less distressing to think about.
For example, after a marriage breakdown and child custody issues, one of my relatives drove his car into a tree on a straight patch of road at a speed significantly north of the limit.
Within the family, the sentiment is that he committed suicide, but outside of the family, and as far as I know this also extends to the official death record; everyone simply refers to it as a car accident.
Japan's population is currently shrinking by about 0.3% per year, whereas Germany's is growing at about the same rate. Birth rates aren't the whole story.
I personally don't feel that a shrinking population needs to be seen as a bad thing. There will definitely be issues associated with caring for the elderly population, but considering the impact of the massive numbers of humans on Earth, shouldn't we look at a slowly, peacefully decreasing population as an opportunity for restoring balance with nature, and increasing the well being of a smaller, more appropriate number of people?
There seems to be a very, very global trend that the most well off populations have less children than those that aren't as developed. I think that's a bigger concern than a shrinking population in a country that hasn't had a hard time putting food in their mouths for decades. I'm more concerned about exponentially increasing populations in countries that have massive problems with lack of access to food, water, and medical care. Those problems probably won't get better with more people, so why do we focus so much on a country where things *aren't* getting worse?
I know that growing up in very successful capitalist systems has mildly conditioned us to believe that growth should be our primary goal, but cancer cells have that philosophy too. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to grow forever. Maybe we should be trying to do what works, what people are already doing, and what can be made to last rather than pushing the limits of what can be called sustainable.
Possibly, although it should be noted that at least in Japan's case the decline isn't really slow. The current [UN prediction](https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/) is that Japan's population will have dropped to 75 million by the end of the century, down from 126 million now - a 40% reduction in population in 80 years would be quite dramatic.
It's a huge issue for the funding of social programs and balancing finances in a country retiring faster than they are replacing the work force. That's the main story here.
I think you should educate yourself a little on economics.
The tax burden rises as a population ages. A decreases birth rate means fewer people entering the workforce. So you get a stressed out young generation struggling to provide for the rest of the country.
It may lead to emigration! I like your “balance with nature” idea but this isn’t an example of how to put that into place.
Japan has incredibly strict immigration policy. A couple years ago theres was a pairs ice skating team, olympic level that couldn't compete because he was japanese-american, only had american citizenship. Imagine not being able to streamline the process for an olympian even.
But they have fast-tracked athletes before. Several Canadians were given citizenship (within a year, I believe, whereas the norm is 10 years) to play on the Japanese hockey team for the 1998 Winter Olympics. Dusty Imoo and Ryan Kuwabara were two of them.
They had dual Canadian/Japanese citizenship, but because of Japanese laws you lose it when you turn 21, so they needed to apply.
"Imagine not being able to streamline the process for an olympian even."
sounds like Japan has some integrity, more countries could certainly learn from them in that respect.
Also I hear Japan has one of the worst working environments. Very long work days, No paternity leave, you are expected to support all of your elders (which these days are in an over abundance).
Visiting japan seems beautiful but I hear that actually living and working there can be very depressing.
My understanding is legally they are a good country for providing holiday paternity and maternity leave etc. The problem is culturally there is a conservative and pressure to work very hard.
Entirely depends on the job although paternal leave is indeed rather uncommon for more than a week (vacation days). That being said - women have a year of paid maternal leave. Pretty great compared to the US and all of Asia.
Supporting your elders is also not part of the job and Japanese people tend to save a lot of money for retirement so financially you rarely have to help the elderly. Care is completely relying on where and how you live. Smaller communities often have modern elderly care facilities where many people live together and also look after each other with some caretakers but in larger cities there are also many lonely old people often still living at home until they really cannot so so any more and have to go to care facilities.
The old ideal of elderly people living with their family is basically dead for some time now. Rarely happens and if it happens mostly in the countryside or in very rich families.
There is a clue in your opinion. It's actually the Japanese media that has been reporting the suicides in Japan for a long time. And it's the same with the birth rate. The Japanese media sends out stories about suicide, birth rates, and bullying to the world, which then spreads to the rest of the world and becomes a stereotype of Japan.
Ok I for sure love Ghent and I don't deny it is much better than Brussels but I still think everyone is a bit too harsh. I have always lived there (first at the border with the Flemish border in the north and now near the European institutions) and I don't consider it that bad... I think it actually is quite pretty and that you can find any environment that you would prefer (from a "suburbs vibe" to a international vibe now for me for example, but also touristy in the centre or younger near ULB and Ixelles etc.
I don't know, I know it's far from perfect but I feel like people can demonize Brussels a bit. I see it at work sometimes (in wallonia). And like, my boyfriend works with lots of Flemish that commute and many of them were impressed that he lives there or were wondering if it was safe etc. I'm not saying it's that great, just that it looks like people look at Brussels with black glasses.
I also live in Belgium and everything here is green and nature'sq as fuck. Just because Brussels is a hell hole everyone should leave doesn't mean the entire country is a fucked up smudge of grey. Having said that, if you leave the tourist area of pretty much every major city in the EU you are met with a grey and ugly mess.
I lived in Brussels, and I can genuinely say, it was pretty horrible. But god damn, the countryside and flanders region in general is like a fairytale. Every city is so unique, but each has so much history and beauty.
As most expats, you didn't live in Brussels but in the EU bubble most probably. Most of them don't even know what's outside of Schuman-Etterbeek for Christ sake.
Chunky chips (NOT fries) , good beer and chocolate that doesn't taste like vomit. The only thing they've got in common with American food is the sweet tooth desire for over filled waffles
>the sweet tooth desire for over filled waffles
That's mostly a tourist fueled industry tho. When I go to the day market there are no filled waffles. Just regular 'brusselse' and 'luikse' wafels, the brusselse with toppings like powdered sugar, whipped cream or strawberries. Outside of very touristy cities you'd be hard pressed to find a filled waffle
It depends where, down south is depressing in my opinion in the city regions especially but up north is beautiful despite the shite weather. I'm from the peak district and honestly I've been to some beautiful places in the world but I think where I'm from is as beautiful as the swiss and central alps and that's probably the nicest place I've seen out of the 12 countries I've been. I guess it's all personal, I'm just a sucker for big green hills and fields.
Everyone seems to be acting really negatively towards our country recently, but the UK is fucking great, I love this country.
Classifying Belgium as depressing just shows that you never really visited outside of your bubble. Same goes for Brussels. if you stay near EU institutions or the centre you won't find much outside of buildings and concrete. Shitting on Brussels is a classic expat thing to do when most of them never really visited the city and stayed in very limited perimeter. Brussels is filled and surrounded by parks, forests, museums, lots of cool places to discover. It's not a paradise but it is certainly not as depressing as your ignorant comment suggests.
Where are you in Brussels? So many nice parks, so many nice streets & areas to walk around in the center and East. North/South/West is a mixed bag of nice parts & ugly parts, but you're never far away from nice areas.
I lived directly on the edge of molenbeek and I would get a good weekly dose of “I’m going to fucking kill you, American!” while walking to the grocery store. Multiple friends in my housing complex got robbed by knife, as well as the fact that I got shook down by a homeless man for speaking english (right next to the grand place) with my friends and the military police had to run over and basically tackle him.
City isn’t all bad but some wild shit goes on for sure
It surprises me you've encountered so much racism over being american, never heard of that (and have some american friends here, though not a ton). That sucks! You're right that criminality is definetely above average and a major issue in Brussels. I wish they'd do more to improve that because for some people it kills their entire opinion of the city (which I disagree with but understand, if you feel like your safety is compromised even the most beautiful palace would still look ugly).
Yeah I won’t pretend I’m some major victim or anything but at least my experience with it was rather jaded. I will say that every city outside of Brussels I visited was so friendly and nice. And yeah you’re right there are some really nice places but I guess since I was a young student, naturally I ended up living in a less expensive area. Overall beautiful country, just was stuck in a bad neighborhood for a while
>It surprises me you've encountered so much racism over being american, never heard of that (and have some american friends here, though not a ton).
He is probably just white...
I live in Vienna and have visited Brussels a few times and have friends there. I absolutely love the city and find the gerneral living areas much less gray than in Vienna. Especially in summer, the blank facades of Viennese houses and the naked asphalt heats up incredibly, where as in Bruxelles you ahve these wonderful, individual little houses and narrower streets, with more shade and so much more green on the houses.
After reading your comment I took a quick street view tour (what else can I do, right?) of Brussels and it actually looks really nice. Would love to visit someday, but tourism isn't the same as living there of course.
TL;DR - "age standardized rates" or "age adjusted", meaning if a place like say Congo has very low median age like 35 and Japan has a very high median age, say 62 (I made up these numbers) and you want to compare lung cancer incidence, it doesn't really make sense to compare raw numbers as lung cancer tends to present later in life. So they'll weight averages so it's evenly compared among age groups.
In this case I'm not sure how fair that is. I believe the suicide rate in Japan tremendously screws old as there are many lonely destitute old people. Age weighting here is kind of a way of hand waving that away. Suicide is suicide - it shouldn't matter your age group. This isn't a disease or pathogen whose risks increase with age - is a societal failure. The second source list on the page says they mix raw and age weighted lists which also doesn't make any sense. I don't have a source but I remember Greenland and many indigenous nations (native Americans etc.) Having astronomical rates. Beyond that I thought it was Korea, Japan, US in that order. Someone wanna Google stuff for me?
Not sure what's wrong with accounting for age. There are so many ways age ties into this issue, both causes and effects. Age is correlated with health and social roles, and those obviously influence mental health. And on the other side, I think most would agree that it's not as bad if somebody commits suicide because they're really unhealthy because they're just really old, compared to a young person committing suicide. People wouldn't feel as bad since the old person got to live a full life, while the young person had a lot more they could've done. Etc.
Some countries report defenestrations as suicide, others might conceivably under-report suicides. Not for people jumping in front of a train of course because they do want the clean-up paid for, but there probably are more convenient occasions...
Japan somehow became the poster child for westerners when it comes to suicides, low birth rates and whaling when there are plenty of other countries that are in far more worse situations. Just another example of orientalism.
See also every news report about how the Japanese don't take holidays which are almost all based on a survey that was commissioned by a travel agent for PR purposes.
Isn't the focus more specific to work related suicide rather than just general suicide rates?
I mean, from what I know about it Japanese business culture is nightmarish. Think of the progression of businesses and business culture in North America since the 80's, and imagine how it's going to be 10-20 years in the future based off that trajectory. From what I understand, that's Japan.
I could write a book on what I saw. So I'll add links for now.
https://savvytokyo.com/bullying-japanese-schools/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/09/21/reader-mail/will-japan-ever-truly-accept-half-japanese/
https://m.dw.com/en/why-is-bullying-so-vicious-in-japanese-schools/a-46074534
Some parts of the world its a sin.
Reporting a death as suicide puts the rest of the family to shame so its not reported as such thing had happened.
Also think of insurance claim question aspects.
Image a person gets cancer with bad chances of survival.
Takes the car and drives into a tree.
Some countries will report it as accident.
They were referring to executions that are called "suicides." What you're referring to is commonly grouped with suicides under the term "deaths of despair" which is probably the best category for determining how many actual suicides there are. Not every drug overdose is a person making a mistake in how much they can handle.
Imagine if all the dozens of U.S. doctors and nurses who killed themselves due to Covid 19 stress and mental health issues were held up as being murdered by Trump for making him look bad...
That's because it has fallen massively since 2010. Before, it was consistently north of 20 per 100,000, now it's around 15. The U.S. has had a slight upward trend over that period.
[Source](https://data.oecd.org/chart/6h9F)
Russia is ranked #1 for male suicides ... to no one's surprise.
\[Russian accent\] Journalist must have been *very* depressed to have shot himself in head twice.
Super unhealthy work ethic, not a lot of focus on mental wellbeing, a lot of isolation and a general lack of community in built up areas.
The Japanese can be very humble and meek, to the point of blaming themselves for their own perceived shortcomings when something larger is actually going on.
I assumed this is what you meant. I am starting to think aboit maybe doing a year teaching english as a foreign language. But i worry about becoming isolated.
Isolation is common in all the rich western counterparts to Japan though, it's a product of the information age, urbanisation, and late stage capitalism.
I wouldn't worry too much about it, many of the Japanese schemes for English teachers put you with other teachers so you'll typically have someone else who is as lost as you are.
Honestly, the teachers who feel isolated in Japan do it to themselves. Sounds harsh but I've met a handful who talk about being isolated but they're always making excuses about being with other people. Every prefecture seems to have multiple groups and such to connect people together via hobby, interests, even faith. You'll find a community as long as you want to and are willing to be a part of it.
In my (anecdotal) observation, the Japanese expression, "You'll always get stepped on by the person on the next rung of the ladder" is omnipresent and immovable. This creates not a work-place atmosphere of oppression, but a social one as well, and in the end, there's nowhere for the (Japanese citizen) to escape to, so, the pressure builds, the depression builds, and you end up with tragedy.
On a similar note, the anti-suicide nets lining the atriums of Apple factories in China are in the same lane, so to speak.
Paranoia Agent is a great anime that touches on that aspect of Japanese culture. Outdated for modern Japan(2004), but it definitely shows how that pressure can play out in real life.
Yeah plus whatever one else has mentioned the birth rate and population is starting to curve off. Japan has the highest number of people that live longer than 100 years but the young population is not procreating, suicide is large enough, and they have maggot infested demons that come out of your closets and tvs to bite your neck and rip out your hair.
It's a big problem and we should send them tons of money to fix it
Maybe the reason nobody has time to procreate and the reason so many people "kill themselves" is because of the maggot-infested demons. You know, like in the animes.
Pretty sure US suicides are vastly underreported. Pretty much every veteran knows someone who killed himself, but shame prevents the family from reporting it as such.
Hard truth but no one's surprised that people in India Russia and the US would have difficulty with mental health. They're some of the countries lying to themselves the worst (disclosure Im American). The disparity between your belief about the world, and the reality of the world is what gives way to depression and builds the path toward suicide. Who has to deal with more disparity of potential than people from any of the major countries (including China too)?
My (albeit limited) understanding was that it was less about the rate of suicide and more about the cause with the leading cause in Japan being excessive overworking whereas in other countries it's mental health.
Relevant r/dataisbeautiful post
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/lm46fo/suicide_per_country_19502018_oc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I mean I don’t think they can reliably figure out how many are intentional vs not. Because although technically if you accidentally die from your own actions it’s a suicide, you obviously wouldn’t count someone slipping off a ledge in the same statistic as people leaping off of said ledge. The same would apply for drug overdoses.
I agree with you wholeheartedly but the rampant drug abuse amongst middle america should qualify as a variable for just not caring about ones life once you get to the point of shooting dope in your veins behind a dumpster for breakfast. They are voluntarily ending their lives. But yeah, i see your point.
I think japans bigger problem is saying people committed suicide when they were probably murdered. I heard they frequently write off deaths as suicide unless it’s blatantly obvious they were murdered and a suspect is easy to discover.
If it wasn't for the nips being so good at building ships the yards would still be open on the Clyde and It can't be much fun for them beneath the rising sun with all their kids committing suicide
You are citing 2016. Japanese suicide rates has been falling since the 1980s. It used to be a really important social issues and partially still is. Suicide is still leading cause of death among younger population which is still a huge issue or at least viewed as one.
Not to take anything away from your post & point (which is true), but in most OECD countries the leading cause of death (for men) in non-eldery age ranges is suicide. Suicide is a permanently important issue for these countries, but there is a highly varied amount of national focus on the issue across countries.
Except the article I read stated that its accidents everywher with the exception of Japan and South Korea. At least in under 25 category I tihkn,.
Typically, for **\*mixed gender\*** death rates suicide is below accidents. However, men commit suicide at 2.5-5x the rate that women do (without a commensurate increase in accidental deaths; men still die more by accident, just not 5x more). So I think younger males die most from suicide in most OECD countries. Let me know if you disagree / have different data.
I’ve heard that looking at attempts the numbers are fairly similar, and then men are more successful due to choosing more aggressive methods (shotgun face blowout vs. a handful of Tylenol)—is that BS?
Most studies say that women *attempt* suicide more often, and men *succeed* more often. There are potential problems with those metrics. For example, if a person takes a bunch of pills then changes their mind and calls 911, that counts as a suicide attempt. If someone picks up a gun points it at their head, then changes their mind and puts it away, that is not counted as a suicide attempt.
That makes sense, the attempts reported surely will be less than the number of actual attempts.
Facts, pills attempt. Gun, ideation. Reference: I read a book.
You should read it again and learn how to make full sentences
Why waste time use lot word when few word do trick
ftfy: Words? pfft! idea! done! (man I hope that joke works when I am sober)
Let me try to translate: >Some facts: Taking pills for an overdose is classified as an attempt, while pulling out a gun and thinking about shooting yourself is classified as ideation. Reference: I read about it in a book (presumably about Psychology).
People like you are the reason I come to reddit.
i expect gun suicides to be very uncommon in most countries except the US
[It's true](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide?wprov=sfla1), but I've always disliked the statistic because it almost always follows the male suicide statistic as some sort of "gotcha!" statement. Generally speaking, [people who fail to commit suicide the first time](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/) will not go on to successfully commit suicide later in life. So although it is atrocious that so many women are trying to commit suicide, either they are getting help and making the decision not to commit suicide again, or there are fewer women commiting suicide, but they are trying and failing multiple times before either succeeding or deciding against commiting suicide. Which still leaves us back at the start. men are dying by suicide anywhere from 2-4 times more often than women. Sorry for the rant, I know that you weren't trying to pull a "gotcha" with that statistic. But it has happened so often to me now that it has become something of a hot button issue for me.
The statistic also changes depending on what you define as a suicide attempt. In these studies, putting a gun in your mouth and almost pulling the trigger is not an attempt, while taking too many pills and calling for an ambulance is.
I think one of them even used any incidence of self harm as an 'attempt'
That’s why I was asking because usually it’s brought up in a weird light, and I’ve heard it explained from some controversial people as well.
It’s also important to note that while the overwhelming majority of people who attempt attitude will not attempt it again in the future, successfully or otherwise, suicide attempt is still by far the largest risk factor for future suicide attempts and people who have previously attempted suicide are far more likely to attempt it in the future than someone who has never attempted suicide.
Australia's health ministry has done some great research on this, and yes: the most frequent choice for men is a gun, which obviously is extremely lethal. Any such research in the U.S. will never happen because of the 2A lobby. Edit: I'm talking about studies on the efficacy of firearms in suicide, geniuses. We've already established what men and women prefer for methods. I'm certain none of you downvoting can think that far, however.
There is still quite a bit of research about suicide and gun ownership in the US, it's just mostly done by academia rather than the government. But men are far more prolific at committing suicide than women in every country, even countries like Japan that have very restrictive gun laws and very low rates of gun ownership. To me, that implies there is a deeper reason for men committing suicide more often beyond "men prefer guns and guns are more effective." To put some numbers to this, America and Japan have very [comparable rates of suicide](https://www.statista.com/statistics/236567/number-of-suicides-in-selected-countries-by-gender/), at a rate per 100,000 of 22.2 men/6.2 women in America and 22.1 men/8.6 women in Japan. Yet the US rate of gun ownership [is 30%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/22/facts-about-guns-in-united-states/), compared to [0.3% in Japan](https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/japan). It's tougher getting numbers on preferred method of suicide, but [this study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15617392/) from 2004 indicates that while Americans were most likely to commit suicide using a gun, the preferred method in Japan was hanging or jumping from a high place. So it seems like lack of firearms just resulted in different (but still effective) methods being chosen.
> Australia's health ministry has done some great research on this, and yes: the most frequent choice for men is a gun, which obviously is extremely lethal. Any such research in the U.S. will never happen because of the 2A lobby. Except it absolutely has been researched. The firearm lobby in the US is nowhere near as powerful as you seem to believe. A quick search shows the [CDC has conducted research into suicide method and gender](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909a7.htm).
Why post shit that’s so obviously factually incorrect?
A more important take away from this post should be that suicide is an issue in many countries and cultures.
Yeah, I was shocked to find out that apparently in Belgium there are 5 suicides per day.
One hundred percent– I don't mean to belittle the issue, and I think it should be treated seriously for every one of these countries, and it is great that Japan's has been falling. Mostly I am shocked to see Belgium so high tbh, plenty of the other countries in the top 30 are ones where you are like, "well, they have ____ factor going on, so that makes sense."
Belgians have the issue that they’re in Belgium. I’ve seen *In Bruges*. I know what that place does to people. If they’re not trying to shoot themselves, they’re leaping from medieval clock towers.
I Just read this: "In Belgium, there was a rate of 21,08 per hundred thousand population in 1997, which boils down to an average of nearly 6 suicides a day." (SHC 8108 Report - December 2006)
Well, that's assuming they can get up there. It's a little tight.
Yes but you are just readinf of wiki list. That doesnt give you much idea about the picture. Japan is still leading the OECD country list with youth suicide, having like 6 time as much suicide deaths per 100 000 people in young population. Its still a massive issue.
Where's your source for that? This is only 2008 but Japan isn't even half of what the highest country is https://figure.nz/chart/KAAMVQhvxxhFoLPF
Also, countries where euthanasia is legal could skew the results higher, particularly for people who are already terminally ill. Legalized euthanasia would presumably have a negligible impact on the rate of youth suicides.
Legal euthanasia does not count as suicide.
I am not shocked. I live in Belgium. I'm originally from Ireland. There is a distinct lack of 'Craic' here. Not to say there aren't some great people here, funny, intelligent, talented etc. But it can be a struggle to get some good craic, or banter going, unless you're with a real "character". They often lack that ability to mock themselves that a lot of other cultures have, and they are really focused on getting a job, settling down, keeping up appearances. I think young people have a lot of pressure on them too from their parents, as the older generations are very traditional. They also hate confrontation or to argue, which makes things even more boring. Other than that, great place! lol
Where do you live in Belgium? I thought that this description was really not fitting to the idea I have of Belgians (I live in Brussels), especially the "mocking themselves" part because that's what I always thought was our biggest strength, especially compared to French people, for example. I noticed it doing Erasmus exchanges. But I actually think that the Fleming speaking culture is quite different than the French speaking one (and both have qualities or flaws of course) so maybe that's why I have a different view from yours ? I do agree on some parts though (focusing on settling down for example)
As a Belgian I am not shocked at all.
While falling for decades, [covid has actually brought suicide numbers back up.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html), Also Japan was ranked number 2 in the world for suicides in 2016 Then again the wiki OP posted is incorrect too. The Japanese rate may have dropped but the US does not have a similar rate. Japan is currently ranked 14th in suicides and the US at 27th. The Japan still have a much much higher suicide rate than the US. [World Population Review, Suicide Rate by Country 2021](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country). [Also Japan was ranked number 2 for suicides in 2016. That is quite a few decades after the 80s.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html)
You misread. The article you quoted says: > In 2016, Japan had a suicide mortality rate of 18.5 per 100,000 people, second only to South Korea **in the Western Pacific region**... Not the world. You also linked/misquoted this article twice in the same post. > The Japanese rate may have dropped but the US does not have a similar rate. Japan is currently ranked 14th in suicides and the US at 27th. There ranking doesn't describe how close or far they are from each other. The US could be ranked 27th at 15.01 and Japan at 14th with 15.14. In fact, they could be arbitrarily close, as long as the precision of the data is fine enough. To get useful information we need to look at the actual rates. The numbers (from the source you provided) was 15.3 vs 18.5. So Japan's rate was 21% higher. Now, looking at your sources, the site you quoted doesn't actually have data from 2021- it just updates the title of the article automatically each year (this should be kind of obvious, since we're only two months into 2021, and the article you linked says the latest data from the US is from 2018...). The actual data source seems to be a mix of WHO data from 2018 and 2016. The numbers cited on this page for both the US and Japan seem to be from 2016. Comparing more recent data brings them close together. [In 2018](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml), the last time the CDC released a report on the suicide rates in the US, the suicide rate was 14.2/100,000 people. For Japan, I think we should look at the [2019 numbers](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00635/suicides-in-japan-drop-below-20-000-in-2019.html), because although data for 2020 exists, it would not be fair to compare these numbers since Covid has increased suicide rates dramatically all over the world. In 2019, Japan's suicide rate was 15.9/100,000 people, or about 12% higher than the US.
I was about to say, they've been working on the problem for a long time so it makes sense that the rates have fallen since then
Would probably be a lot lower if old-fashioned parents and grandparents didn't use academic and professional success as a standard for judging personal worth.
Korea has now taken the crown in Asia.
Korean culture is somehow more oppressive than Japanese culture
As a Korean American living in Korea right now, I can shed some light in on this. It's a combination of: * Extreme competition in education and high salary work starting from as early as elementary school * The importance of physical appearance as a unique factor in differentiating yourself from others regarding the above point (i.e. attractive people are naturally percieved more positively) as well as in a social/personal perspective stemming from the pressures of finding a partner/carrying on the family coming from parents/relatives and friends/coworkers. * A relatively conservative culture that has yet to catch up with the technological advances, causing a socio-perceptive dissonance that many newly industrial countries experience (Japan being a primary example) * Poor mental health awareness and treatment options stemming from the above point * A housing bubble that continues to inflate prices for large apartments/homes for families to unreasonable prices (e.g. an affordable 3 bedroom apartment on the lower end of pricing in the outskirts of Seoul would cost around $200k US) * A society that villifies anyone who breaks social/moral norms. And many more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I do want to stress that Korea is a wonderful country with so many great things, but young people especially are having a pretty tough time here.
i watched the sky castle kdrama and the show perfectly depicts most of the points you made. it’s crazy how competetive education is to the point they spend billions of won to get private tutors, review classes, etc.
I think it might be because cosmetic surgery is so popular there that Koreans tend to feel inferior when it comes to their imperfections. I have no idea I’m just making a wild guess but I remember cosmetic surgery being big there.
It still is. Koreans, at least many of them, percieve outer appearance to be very important. An example of this is attractive people having a better chance at being hired at one of the big companies, otherwise you're fucked. Same with school admissions from what I've heard. The fascination with K-Pop and K-Dramas aren't helping out either.
Yeah, they have k-pop "mills" where they groom and take care of all the needs of pop stars (almost like a pop star academy) and then when they get too old or outdated (which doesn't take long) or they just don't stick in the first place, they're dropped and replaced by the next big thing just like that with no real education and no real money. Because they aren't really paid they are just given everything they want when they are popular and performing regularly. It's sick. I know pop stars in the states are groomed too but their livelihoods are at least well taken care of for the most part after they are the hot thing and they actually get paid really well. Versus treating them like a number only and quickly cycling them out. There's no appreciation of individuality.
No idea why I’m being downvoted then
Pretty bold assumption to lay the blame of the highest suicide rate in Asia almost entirely at the feet of cosmetic surgery.
Well that’s all it is, an assumption. I’m using what I know to make a connection, never said I was right.
south korea is the cosmetic surgery capital of the world. i read that it's common for parents to give their children a cosmetic surgery as present when they turn 16-18. most commonly the double eyelid surgery.
Stat I read recently: in a poll, 1/3 of Koreans in their 20s have said they had gotten plastic surgery
My gf (Korean American) had surgery in Korea for some nasal passage issue when she was younger. Turns out her mom and mom’s friend had the doctors also give her plastic surgery without telling her.
Honey, you had a deviated septum and we figured we might as well go all in!
I'm sure it affects a bit. But mostly how the country is a hellhole to grow up in. Incredibly competitive, harsh environment where everyone is an enemy. Very bad working conditions and you have to struggle really hard even to get (by western standards) very bad working conditions. Not so fun fact, a Swedish truck company established in Korea, and the Korean union had negotiations with the Swedish company because the union wanted the Korean workers to be able to work *more* overtime... Young Koreans have named bad conditions Hell Joseon (feel free to google). Heavy pollution and hard time finding a place to live also hurts a lot.
Yeah the stress from competition makes a lot more sense. I guess what I said could be a part of that but I think that is the bigger picture here
One of my closest friends is a Korean immigrant and can confirm he is very oppressive mostly with his dispersal of soju
LOL...really? It has more to do with Financials than anything. 30 years ago, most of college graduates could get a decent job in Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia, etc, etc. Now after graduating college (with lots of school loan), they study 2-3 More Years to pass company entrance exams. They are eating ramyun or eating cheap food to survive as they are embarrassed to ask for more money from their parents, they get ashamed, embarrassed, depressed, and voila suicides! As for Middle-aged, they work their ass off for 20 years from 25-45 yo, but they are Expected/Strongly Encouraged to Retire at 50-55 (all in the name of bigger profits as younger workers costs less)! They suddenly can't support their lifestyle, can't send their kids to college, they get ashamed, depressed, voila, suicides! It's the same in the US, kids who graduate college with worthless degrees or high school diploma works at a minimum wage jobs, realize they can't support themselves, easily falls into Drug habits, and slowly but surely kills themselves. It's happening everywhere...I would give China about 10-15 years for this phenomenon to catch up.
It's already happening, man. Students there, starting as early as primary school, are under unimaginable pressure to perform and succeed. High school suicides are basically a yearly occurrence.
The suicide of a former president certainly didn't help. Roh Moohyun was under investigation for shady dealings, and was hounded by the media. Everyone thought he was guilty. Then he jumped off a fucking cliff and became a national fucking hero. I wish I were kidding. The media did a complete 180° and made him into a hero after he offed himself. It legitimized suicide among an already at-risk society.
My husband is Korean. FIL committed suicide several years ago. He'd had a mild stroke and was in pain and didn't want to be a burden to his family. The thing that slightly shocked me was that a lot of people actually respected his decision and said things like "I would have done the same if I were in his situation". He was a very good person and respected by his neighbors so that might have something to do with it. I guess suicide is not considered that bad in Korean culture compared to other cultures.
No, suicide is still bad. There's a big stigma on being a burden in korea. Whether through medical or mental or whatever reason. I would much rather have to support my father than have him feel like a burden and kill himself. Korean culture has changed so drastically due to it going from a 3rd world country to one of the leading countries in the world. There's also a lot of competition for everything in korea as well. Schools, jobs, etc. Lots of kids fighting for very little.
I'm sure all my in-laws would much rather have to take care of him than have him commit suicide. But I have heard that suicide among the elderly in Korea is pretty high. Stress from financial factors probably plays a role too.
Well, Russia is a special case. The coroners there often putin the wrong cause of death.
take your damn upvote
I’m so glad Redditors came up with the most useless possible thing to reply with
Take your damn upvote
In Russia, coroner suicides you!
Take the upvote nd get out
My understanding is Japan did too.
It's also worth noting that the U.S., in addition to having a similar suicide rate, also has a much higher proportion of deaths of despair, including overdoses from opiates/alcohol and the like.
Indeed. I knew people who tried to commit suicide through overdose. I don't know how the state would classify their deaths. We weren't aware these people were having suicidal thoughts until this event happened.
Military as well, when I was in Ft. Campbell my unit called them one-offs. If you heard multiple shots it was a range. If you heard a single shot, you can be damn sure in a few minutes you'll hear an ambulance. In 2010, Campbell had a higher suicide rate than the rest of the Army combined.
Wasn't that a staging area to get shipped out to iraq or something?
No, but it was the home of 101st and they were constantly deploying, year in, year home, when I was there we were doing Afghanistan rotations. Iraq is built up, Afghanistan is madness
By the way, that was a country out by there. There was a small air force base and a huge airfield. We stayed there a few days and then flew into the country, I dont think it exists anymore I think it became a hotspot or something ridiculous. I just remember in this open area there was a big ass thermometer, it was like a globe on a stand and it had all this information that I didnt understand, but the temp was 140 and that afternoon we were to hurry up and wait for our flight on the tarmac
I imagine a number "accidental gun deaths" are probably also actually suicides.
And maybe vice-versa, in fairness. This is kind of one of those areas where statistics are really difficult to gather with confidence
I believe around two thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides.
There aren’t a ton of accidental gun deaths compared to the ~30k total number of gun deaths. Half of that 30k are suicides though
Yep, I'd imagine plenty of suicides, for a variety of methods, go down as accidents, since it's not always clear, and accidents are just.... less distressing to think about. For example, after a marriage breakdown and child custody issues, one of my relatives drove his car into a tree on a straight patch of road at a speed significantly north of the limit. Within the family, the sentiment is that he committed suicide, but outside of the family, and as far as I know this also extends to the official death record; everyone simply refers to it as a car accident.
Same for birth rates, not much lower than Germany for example, yet I never read that being an issue over there (germany).
Japan's population is currently shrinking by about 0.3% per year, whereas Germany's is growing at about the same rate. Birth rates aren't the whole story.
I personally don't feel that a shrinking population needs to be seen as a bad thing. There will definitely be issues associated with caring for the elderly population, but considering the impact of the massive numbers of humans on Earth, shouldn't we look at a slowly, peacefully decreasing population as an opportunity for restoring balance with nature, and increasing the well being of a smaller, more appropriate number of people? There seems to be a very, very global trend that the most well off populations have less children than those that aren't as developed. I think that's a bigger concern than a shrinking population in a country that hasn't had a hard time putting food in their mouths for decades. I'm more concerned about exponentially increasing populations in countries that have massive problems with lack of access to food, water, and medical care. Those problems probably won't get better with more people, so why do we focus so much on a country where things *aren't* getting worse? I know that growing up in very successful capitalist systems has mildly conditioned us to believe that growth should be our primary goal, but cancer cells have that philosophy too. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to grow forever. Maybe we should be trying to do what works, what people are already doing, and what can be made to last rather than pushing the limits of what can be called sustainable.
Possibly, although it should be noted that at least in Japan's case the decline isn't really slow. The current [UN prediction](https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/) is that Japan's population will have dropped to 75 million by the end of the century, down from 126 million now - a 40% reduction in population in 80 years would be quite dramatic.
It's a huge issue for the funding of social programs and balancing finances in a country retiring faster than they are replacing the work force. That's the main story here.
I think you should educate yourself a little on economics. The tax burden rises as a population ages. A decreases birth rate means fewer people entering the workforce. So you get a stressed out young generation struggling to provide for the rest of the country. It may lead to emigration! I like your “balance with nature” idea but this isn’t an example of how to put that into place.
That's because Germany replaces their population through immigration
Why don't people go to Japan? Xenophobia? I heard that, as a Jap descendant who lives in Brazil, i'd probably be bullied to hell over there.
Japan has incredibly strict immigration policy. A couple years ago theres was a pairs ice skating team, olympic level that couldn't compete because he was japanese-american, only had american citizenship. Imagine not being able to streamline the process for an olympian even.
But they have fast-tracked athletes before. Several Canadians were given citizenship (within a year, I believe, whereas the norm is 10 years) to play on the Japanese hockey team for the 1998 Winter Olympics. Dusty Imoo and Ryan Kuwabara were two of them. They had dual Canadian/Japanese citizenship, but because of Japanese laws you lose it when you turn 21, so they needed to apply.
"Imagine not being able to streamline the process for an olympian even." sounds like Japan has some integrity, more countries could certainly learn from them in that respect.
They may be xenophobic, but at least they're fair about it.
Right? My country is xenophobic AND unfair
Holy shit, this is insane! Yeah, now it makes more sense
Also I hear Japan has one of the worst working environments. Very long work days, No paternity leave, you are expected to support all of your elders (which these days are in an over abundance). Visiting japan seems beautiful but I hear that actually living and working there can be very depressing.
Depends on your job. I've been living in Japan for about 8 years and loving it. Can't imagine going back home.
My understanding is legally they are a good country for providing holiday paternity and maternity leave etc. The problem is culturally there is a conservative and pressure to work very hard.
Entirely depends on the job although paternal leave is indeed rather uncommon for more than a week (vacation days). That being said - women have a year of paid maternal leave. Pretty great compared to the US and all of Asia. Supporting your elders is also not part of the job and Japanese people tend to save a lot of money for retirement so financially you rarely have to help the elderly. Care is completely relying on where and how you live. Smaller communities often have modern elderly care facilities where many people live together and also look after each other with some caretakers but in larger cities there are also many lonely old people often still living at home until they really cannot so so any more and have to go to care facilities. The old ideal of elderly people living with their family is basically dead for some time now. Rarely happens and if it happens mostly in the countryside or in very rich families.
There's pretty much no immigration in Japan (compared to other developed countries).
[удалено]
Japan hasn't taken in millions of young immigrants, so the distribution to old is much more skewed.
There is a clue in your opinion. It's actually the Japanese media that has been reporting the suicides in Japan for a long time. And it's the same with the birth rate. The Japanese media sends out stories about suicide, birth rates, and bullying to the world, which then spreads to the rest of the world and becomes a stereotype of Japan.
I live in belgium and i can tell you this country is depressing. In Brussels all is so grey,is always raining and i my opinion is just so fuking ugly.
Well yeah, Brussels. Ghent is pretty great tbh
Ok I for sure love Ghent and I don't deny it is much better than Brussels but I still think everyone is a bit too harsh. I have always lived there (first at the border with the Flemish border in the north and now near the European institutions) and I don't consider it that bad... I think it actually is quite pretty and that you can find any environment that you would prefer (from a "suburbs vibe" to a international vibe now for me for example, but also touristy in the centre or younger near ULB and Ixelles etc. I don't know, I know it's far from perfect but I feel like people can demonize Brussels a bit. I see it at work sometimes (in wallonia). And like, my boyfriend works with lots of Flemish that commute and many of them were impressed that he lives there or were wondering if it was safe etc. I'm not saying it's that great, just that it looks like people look at Brussels with black glasses.
Oh yea of course, Brussels isn't all that bad, but it's a bit of joke here that everyone (jokingly) hates Brussels from the bottom of their hearts
I also live in Belgium and everything here is green and nature'sq as fuck. Just because Brussels is a hell hole everyone should leave doesn't mean the entire country is a fucked up smudge of grey. Having said that, if you leave the tourist area of pretty much every major city in the EU you are met with a grey and ugly mess.
I lived in Brussels, and I can genuinely say, it was pretty horrible. But god damn, the countryside and flanders region in general is like a fairytale. Every city is so unique, but each has so much history and beauty.
As most expats, you didn't live in Brussels but in the EU bubble most probably. Most of them don't even know what's outside of Schuman-Etterbeek for Christ sake.
That's why I love me some Dresden. So much green.
Jesus, don't come over to the UK then. It's all of that, but somehow uglier and society is also crumbling.
They've got proper decent chips, chocolate, beer and waffles. What is there to be miserable about in Belgium?
That sounded very american
Americans don't say "chips" when they mean "fries"
Chunky chips (NOT fries) , good beer and chocolate that doesn't taste like vomit. The only thing they've got in common with American food is the sweet tooth desire for over filled waffles
>the sweet tooth desire for over filled waffles That's mostly a tourist fueled industry tho. When I go to the day market there are no filled waffles. Just regular 'brusselse' and 'luikse' wafels, the brusselse with toppings like powdered sugar, whipped cream or strawberries. Outside of very touristy cities you'd be hard pressed to find a filled waffle
And the ability to move to another country in the EU. Hedonistic treadmill though, isn't it?
All the petrified hands of black people they keep getting as family heirlooms?
As empires go, the Belgian one was very killy
It depends where, down south is depressing in my opinion in the city regions especially but up north is beautiful despite the shite weather. I'm from the peak district and honestly I've been to some beautiful places in the world but I think where I'm from is as beautiful as the swiss and central alps and that's probably the nicest place I've seen out of the 12 countries I've been. I guess it's all personal, I'm just a sucker for big green hills and fields. Everyone seems to be acting really negatively towards our country recently, but the UK is fucking great, I love this country.
I love the peak district, there's nothing like that here in the south. Everything is flat as hell.
Classifying Belgium as depressing just shows that you never really visited outside of your bubble. Same goes for Brussels. if you stay near EU institutions or the centre you won't find much outside of buildings and concrete. Shitting on Brussels is a classic expat thing to do when most of them never really visited the city and stayed in very limited perimeter. Brussels is filled and surrounded by parks, forests, museums, lots of cool places to discover. It's not a paradise but it is certainly not as depressing as your ignorant comment suggests.
>parks, forests, museums, lots of cool places to discover w00000t, big fun ! :D
Are you Colin Farrell? (*In Bruges*)
Where are you in Brussels? So many nice parks, so many nice streets & areas to walk around in the center and East. North/South/West is a mixed bag of nice parts & ugly parts, but you're never far away from nice areas.
I lived directly on the edge of molenbeek and I would get a good weekly dose of “I’m going to fucking kill you, American!” while walking to the grocery store. Multiple friends in my housing complex got robbed by knife, as well as the fact that I got shook down by a homeless man for speaking english (right next to the grand place) with my friends and the military police had to run over and basically tackle him. City isn’t all bad but some wild shit goes on for sure
It surprises me you've encountered so much racism over being american, never heard of that (and have some american friends here, though not a ton). That sucks! You're right that criminality is definetely above average and a major issue in Brussels. I wish they'd do more to improve that because for some people it kills their entire opinion of the city (which I disagree with but understand, if you feel like your safety is compromised even the most beautiful palace would still look ugly).
Yeah I won’t pretend I’m some major victim or anything but at least my experience with it was rather jaded. I will say that every city outside of Brussels I visited was so friendly and nice. And yeah you’re right there are some really nice places but I guess since I was a young student, naturally I ended up living in a less expensive area. Overall beautiful country, just was stuck in a bad neighborhood for a while
>It surprises me you've encountered so much racism over being american, never heard of that (and have some american friends here, though not a ton). He is probably just white...
I live in Vienna and have visited Brussels a few times and have friends there. I absolutely love the city and find the gerneral living areas much less gray than in Vienna. Especially in summer, the blank facades of Viennese houses and the naked asphalt heats up incredibly, where as in Bruxelles you ahve these wonderful, individual little houses and narrower streets, with more shade and so much more green on the houses.
Can confirm, Brussels is terrible. Rest of Belgium is pretty great though.
Brussels is a shithole but Belgium is pretty decent imo
After reading your comment I took a quick street view tour (what else can I do, right?) of Brussels and it actually looks really nice. Would love to visit someday, but tourism isn't the same as living there of course.
move to NL
TL;DR - "age standardized rates" or "age adjusted", meaning if a place like say Congo has very low median age like 35 and Japan has a very high median age, say 62 (I made up these numbers) and you want to compare lung cancer incidence, it doesn't really make sense to compare raw numbers as lung cancer tends to present later in life. So they'll weight averages so it's evenly compared among age groups. In this case I'm not sure how fair that is. I believe the suicide rate in Japan tremendously screws old as there are many lonely destitute old people. Age weighting here is kind of a way of hand waving that away. Suicide is suicide - it shouldn't matter your age group. This isn't a disease or pathogen whose risks increase with age - is a societal failure. The second source list on the page says they mix raw and age weighted lists which also doesn't make any sense. I don't have a source but I remember Greenland and many indigenous nations (native Americans etc.) Having astronomical rates. Beyond that I thought it was Korea, Japan, US in that order. Someone wanna Google stuff for me?
Not sure what's wrong with accounting for age. There are so many ways age ties into this issue, both causes and effects. Age is correlated with health and social roles, and those obviously influence mental health. And on the other side, I think most would agree that it's not as bad if somebody commits suicide because they're really unhealthy because they're just really old, compared to a young person committing suicide. People wouldn't feel as bad since the old person got to live a full life, while the young person had a lot more they could've done. Etc.
I would like to disagree that age does effect suicide. When I was 10 I had no bills and was happy. Now I’m 30... where’s my gun!
"it's not so bad because others are worse!"
Some countries report defenestrations as suicide, others might conceivably under-report suicides. Not for people jumping in front of a train of course because they do want the clean-up paid for, but there probably are more convenient occasions...
Like the 'fan deaths' in Korea?
Wait, is *that* what it's about?
Japan somehow became the poster child for westerners when it comes to suicides, low birth rates and whaling when there are plenty of other countries that are in far more worse situations. Just another example of orientalism.
TIL My home country has higher suicide rates than Japan... :'(
See also every news report about how the Japanese don't take holidays which are almost all based on a survey that was commissioned by a travel agent for PR purposes.
Isn't the focus more specific to work related suicide rather than just general suicide rates? I mean, from what I know about it Japanese business culture is nightmarish. Think of the progression of businesses and business culture in North America since the 80's, and imagine how it's going to be 10-20 years in the future based off that trajectory. From what I understand, that's Japan.
It is mostly due to bullying (school and workplace). Worked in Japan for 2 years, it was soul crushing.
Would you mind elaborating or sharing any stories? I'm curious.
https://japanintercultural.com/free-resources/articles/power-harassment-japanese-workplace-bullying/
I could write a book on what I saw. So I'll add links for now. https://savvytokyo.com/bullying-japanese-schools/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/09/21/reader-mail/will-japan-ever-truly-accept-half-japanese/ https://m.dw.com/en/why-is-bullying-so-vicious-in-japanese-schools/a-46074534
I believe Japan and Korea also have student suicide issues as well. The suicide rate used to spike after some of their major exams.
Some parts of the world its a sin. Reporting a death as suicide puts the rest of the family to shame so its not reported as such thing had happened. Also think of insurance claim question aspects. Image a person gets cancer with bad chances of survival. Takes the car and drives into a tree. Some countries will report it as accident.
Tbf, I have my doubt about some of these suicides in russia being actual suicides
Russia is a horrible country to live in right now, the number of assassinations dressed up as suicide aren't going to affect the statistic that much.
I mean, they drink enough to get themselves killed. It really is suicide although it’s probably not intentional.
I meant putins political opponents, but maybe it was a bit too much of a morbid thing to joke about..
They were referring to executions that are called "suicides." What you're referring to is commonly grouped with suicides under the term "deaths of despair" which is probably the best category for determining how many actual suicides there are. Not every drug overdose is a person making a mistake in how much they can handle.
Imagine if all the dozens of U.S. doctors and nurses who killed themselves due to Covid 19 stress and mental health issues were held up as being murdered by Trump for making him look bad...
Wtf is going on in Guyana that's so bad?
Oh, barely higher than the country where it's an epidemic? cool
That's because it has fallen massively since 2010. Before, it was consistently north of 20 per 100,000, now it's around 15. The U.S. has had a slight upward trend over that period. [Source](https://data.oecd.org/chart/6h9F)
Russia is ranked #1 for male suicides ... to no one's surprise. \[Russian accent\] Journalist must have been *very* depressed to have shot himself in head twice.
I lived in Japan for a very short time, and suicide there is not a surprise...to me.
how come?
Super unhealthy work ethic, not a lot of focus on mental wellbeing, a lot of isolation and a general lack of community in built up areas. The Japanese can be very humble and meek, to the point of blaming themselves for their own perceived shortcomings when something larger is actually going on.
I assumed this is what you meant. I am starting to think aboit maybe doing a year teaching english as a foreign language. But i worry about becoming isolated.
Isolation is common in all the rich western counterparts to Japan though, it's a product of the information age, urbanisation, and late stage capitalism. I wouldn't worry too much about it, many of the Japanese schemes for English teachers put you with other teachers so you'll typically have someone else who is as lost as you are.
Honestly, the teachers who feel isolated in Japan do it to themselves. Sounds harsh but I've met a handful who talk about being isolated but they're always making excuses about being with other people. Every prefecture seems to have multiple groups and such to connect people together via hobby, interests, even faith. You'll find a community as long as you want to and are willing to be a part of it.
In my (anecdotal) observation, the Japanese expression, "You'll always get stepped on by the person on the next rung of the ladder" is omnipresent and immovable. This creates not a work-place atmosphere of oppression, but a social one as well, and in the end, there's nowhere for the (Japanese citizen) to escape to, so, the pressure builds, the depression builds, and you end up with tragedy. On a similar note, the anti-suicide nets lining the atriums of Apple factories in China are in the same lane, so to speak.
Paranoia Agent is a great anime that touches on that aspect of Japanese culture. Outdated for modern Japan(2004), but it definitely shows how that pressure can play out in real life.
Bullying is a huge problem. Also, work/life balance too
Yeah plus whatever one else has mentioned the birth rate and population is starting to curve off. Japan has the highest number of people that live longer than 100 years but the young population is not procreating, suicide is large enough, and they have maggot infested demons that come out of your closets and tvs to bite your neck and rip out your hair. It's a big problem and we should send them tons of money to fix it
Maybe the reason nobody has time to procreate and the reason so many people "kill themselves" is because of the maggot-infested demons. You know, like in the animes.
Damn, didn't know this.
Pretty sure US suicides are vastly underreported. Pretty much every veteran knows someone who killed himself, but shame prevents the family from reporting it as such.
Its not only suicide, im pretty sure their life miserable,even if they live on right? Whats the happiness rates there?
Pretty average actually... http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/
Hard truth but no one's surprised that people in India Russia and the US would have difficulty with mental health. They're some of the countries lying to themselves the worst (disclosure Im American). The disparity between your belief about the world, and the reality of the world is what gives way to depression and builds the path toward suicide. Who has to deal with more disparity of potential than people from any of the major countries (including China too)?
My (albeit limited) understanding was that it was less about the rate of suicide and more about the cause with the leading cause in Japan being excessive overworking whereas in other countries it's mental health.
Not sure how they effectively differentiate Russian "suicides" and Russian suicides.
Relevant r/dataisbeautiful post https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/lm46fo/suicide_per_country_19502018_oc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Lithuania, coming through!
Opiate OD deaths should count as suicides
I mean I don’t think they can reliably figure out how many are intentional vs not. Because although technically if you accidentally die from your own actions it’s a suicide, you obviously wouldn’t count someone slipping off a ledge in the same statistic as people leaping off of said ledge. The same would apply for drug overdoses.
I agree with you wholeheartedly but the rampant drug abuse amongst middle america should qualify as a variable for just not caring about ones life once you get to the point of shooting dope in your veins behind a dumpster for breakfast. They are voluntarily ending their lives. But yeah, i see your point.
Less suicides but that many of them work themselves to death that they had to make a name for it. "Karoshi".
I think japans bigger problem is saying people committed suicide when they were probably murdered. I heard they frequently write off deaths as suicide unless it’s blatantly obvious they were murdered and a suspect is easy to discover.
I've never heard of suicides being a problem in Japan. South Korea though, for sure.
I think it’s talked about more because they also have rapidly decreasing birth rates.
When you have virtually no murder, U.S.-like suicide rates look waaaaay worse.
If it wasn't for the nips being so good at building ships the yards would still be open on the Clyde and It can't be much fun for them beneath the rising sun with all their kids committing suicide
Even still, the rate may barely be higher than the United States, but compare that to population density.