By TOMOE ISHIKAWA/ Staff Writer
January 20, 2023 at 18:37 JST
The number of suicides in Japan increased for the first time in two years in 2022, led by a surge in older men taking their lives, the health ministry said Jan. 20.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s preliminary figures showed that 21,584 people killed themselves last year, up by 577, or 2.7 percent, from 2021.
Of the total, 14,543 were males, up by 604 from the previous year and the first increase in 13 years.
By age group, 2,604 men in their 50s, up 298, and 2,388 in their 40s, an increase of 71, killed themselves, according to provisional data for the period between January and November.
The number of females who committed suicide in 2022 was 7,041.
Although that represented a decrease of 27 from the previous year, the annual suicide figure for females has continued to exceed 7,000 since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The number of suicides per 100,000 population across the country was 17.2 in 2022, compared with 16.7 for the previous year.
By prefecture, Yamanashi had the worst rate, at 24.3 per 100,000 people, followed by Akita with 23.7 and Miyazaki with 22.7.
The annual number of suicides in Japan stayed above 30,000 between 1998 and 2011. Suicide-prevention measures and increased awareness of the issue kept pushing the figure down until 2020, when it rose for the first time in 11 years.
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