Japan's agriculture minister hanged himself Monday amid allegations of bid-rigging and padding government expenses. The following day, an executive allegedly linked to one of the scams leapt to his death. In 2005, 32,552 people killed themselves in Japan—one of the highest suicide rates among industrialized nations. Why are there so many suicides in Japan?There's no single factor, but experts point to a combination of economic woes, poor mental-health resources, lenient insurance policies, lack of religious prohibition, and cultural acceptance of the practice. The economic recession that hit in the late 1990s seemed to increase the number of suicides, which jumped by 35 percent in 1998. Japan's high-interest loan system and historically strict bankruptcy laws may have contributed to this effect. But the Japanese suicide rate remains elevated, even though the economy has since recovered. Even before the recession, the rate was already a third higher than that of the United States. (Not that Japan is setting any records: Hungary, Estonia, and Latvia, among others, have more suicides per capita than Japan.)
The stigma attached to mental illness—and the psychiatrists who treat it—may also contribute to the high suicide rates. Antidepressant SSRIs didn't become widely available until 1993, and as of 2003 you could get Zoloft and Prozac only by ordering them through the mail. (Japan has been slow to introduce other drugs, too: The birth control pill, which was legalized in 1999, remains unpopular.) In 2006, the government began introducing reforms that would create suicide hot lines and make counselors available in schools and at work.
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