The Reasons for Suicide in Japan

Abstract

A study of the reasons for suicide from 1978 to 1995 in Japan revealed strong trends over time and strong gender differences. For both men and women, suicides due to relationship problems became less common over the period; for men job stress became a more common precipitant, while for women psychiatric disorder became a more common precipitant. Years of high unemployment witnessed higher proportions of suicides due to economic hardship, lending support to the reliability and validity of these data.