Photo/Illutration The health ministry building in Tokyo (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A surge in suicides by women in 2020 fueled the first rise in Japan's total number of suicides in 11 years, according to government data.

A total of 7,026 women took their own lives in Japan in 2020, 935 more than in 2019.

Many of the women were nonregular workers, who were the most vulnerable when Japan's employment environment worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The work environment deteriorated due to the coronavirus pandemic, contributing to an increase in suicides (of women),” the welfare ministry said in its white paper for 2021 on suicide prevention in Japan.

The white paper received Cabinet approval on Nov. 2.

A total of 21,081 people in Japan killed themselves in 2020, accounting for 912 more, or 4.5 percent higher than in 2019, according to the white paper.

Of the total, 14,055 men took their own lives, a decrease of 23, or 0.2 percent less than in 2019.

In contrast, 15.4 percent more women took their own lives in 2020, the first rise in two years.

The white paper compared the figure for women in 2020 with the average for women from 2015 to 2019 to assess the impact from the pandemic, which began in early 2020.

Figures showed that suicides rose among working women, 381 more than the average of the previous five years, suggesting that the pandemic weighed heavily on them.

They were followed by female students, of whom 140 more killed themselves than in the five-year average through 2019.

The number of unemployed women who took their own lives fell by 98, while 70 fewer homemakers killed themselves.

Suicides that were deemed tied to the victims having job-related problems increased by 34.8 percent.

The white paper also showed that more women than men turned to social media to seek consultations over having suicidal thoughts.

Two nonprofit groups that set up online contacts for people hit hard by the pandemic provided 8,262 consultations in fiscal 2020.

Of the 7,558 cases where the gender of the person seeking help was known, 6,180, or 80 percent, were women.

Suicides among students, including those in elementary and junior high schools, hit 1,039 in 2020, the highest since the government began compiling data on suicides in 1978.

Suicides among school-age students tended to rise when schools reopened, the ministry said.

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