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Suicide in Japan has become a significant national social issue. In 2014 on average 70 Japanese people committed suicide every day, and the vast majority were men.〔Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News (Why does Japan have such a high suicide rate? ) 3 July 2015〕 Japan has a relatively high suicide rate, but the number of suicides is declining and has been under 30,000 for three consecutive years. Seventy-one percent of suicides in Japan were male,〔 and it is the leading cause of death in men aged 20–44.〔〔 Factors in suicide include unemployment (due to the economic recession in the 1990s and in the late 2000s/early 2010s), depression, and social pressures. In 2007, the National Police Agency (NPA) revised the categorization of motives for suicide into a division of 50 reasons with up to three reasons listed for each suicide. Suicides traced to losing jobs surged 65.3 percent, while those attributed to hardships in life increased 34.3 percent. Depression remained at the top of the list for the third year in a row, rising 7.1 percent from the previous year.〔 In Japanese culture, there is a long history of honorable suicide, such as ritual suicide by Samurai to avoid being captured, flying one's plane into the enemy during WWII, or charging into the enemy fearlessly to prevent bringing shame on one's family.〔"In Japanese culture, for example, there are basically two types of suicide: honorable and dishonorable suicide. Honorable suicide is a means of protecting the reputation of one's family after a member has been found guilty a of dishonorable deed such as embezzlement or flunking out of college, or to save the nation as in the case of the kamikaze pilots in World War II. Dishonorable suicide is when one takes his or her life for personal reasons in order to escape some turmoil. This is thought of as a cowardly way out of life and a coward can only bring dishonor to his family." - ("The Moral Dimensions of Properly Evaluating and Defining Suicide" ), by Edward S. Harris, Chowan College〕 There has been a rapid increase in suicides since the 1990s. For example, 1998 saw a 34.7% increase over the previous year.〔 This has prompted the Japanese government to react by increasing funding to treat the causes of suicide and those recovering from failed suicides. ==Demographics and locations== Typically, most suicides are men; 71% of suicide victims in 2007 were male.〔 In 2009, the number of suicides among men rose 641 to 23,472 (with those age 40–69 accounting for 40.8% of the total). Suicide was the leading cause of death among men age 20–44.〔 Males are two times more likely to cause their own deaths after a divorce than females are. Nevertheless, suicide is still the leading cause of death for women age 15–34 in Japan.〔〔 In 2009, the number of suicides rose 2 percent to 32,845, exceeding 30,000 for the twelfth straight year and equating to nearly 26 suicides per 100,000 people. A frequent location for suicides is in Aokigahara, a forested area at the base of Mount Fuji. In the period leading up to 1988, about 30 suicides occurred there every year. In 1999, 74 occurred, the record until 2002 when 78 suicides were found. That record was eclipsed the following year when 105 bodies were found in 2003, and again in 2004 when 108 people killed themselves there.〔 The area is patrolled by police looking for suicides. Police records show that, in 2010, there were 247 suicide attempts (54 of which were fatal) in the forest.〔 Railroad tracks are also a common place for suicide, and the Chūō Rapid Line is particularly known for a high number. The prefecture which ranks highest by suicides as of 2010 is Akita prefecture, with 31.86 suicide victims per 100,000 inhabitants, 28% above the national average of 22.94 victims per 100 000 people.〔(人口10万人あたりの自殺者数ランキング。都道府県格付研究所 )〕 The opposite is Nara Prefecture, with 17.28 suicide victims per 100 000 inhabitants. Nearly 2,000 high school students have committed suicide as a result of bullying.〔(Japan Teen Suicides ) CNN〕 The statistics for the year 2014 showed for the first time that suicide was the most common cause of death among those aged 10 to 19.〔mhlw.go.jp (第７表死因順位 ) Accessed 9/1/2015〕〔Mariko Oi (Tackling the deadliest day for Japanese teenagers ) BBC News 9/1/2015〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Suicide in Japan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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