June 20, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1429

TOKYO, June 19: The number of elderly Japanese killing themselves surged 9 per cent to a record high last year, fuelled by mounting health and economic worries among seniors in a rapidly aging society, the government said on Thursday.

The rash of elderly deaths helped push the country’s overall number of suicides to 33,093 in 2007, a 2.9 per cent increase and the second-highest annual tally on record, the National Police Agency said in an annual report.

Japanese aged 60 and over were the fastest growing age group among suicide cases, jumping by 987 last year to 12,107 deaths, an increase of 8.9 per cent from 2006. The age group made up 36.6 per cent of all suicides in Japan in 2007.

The number of elderly suicides eclipsed the previous record high of 11,529 in 2003.

Health trouble was listed as the reason in 56 per cent of the elderly deaths last year and economic worries were second, figuring in 15 per cent of cases, the study said.

“For those aged above 60, economic and health reasons were closely linked. The figure underlined the fact that many old people were financially struggling, which could easily cause poor health,” Masahiro Yamada, a sociology professor at Chuo University in Tokyo.

Japan’s society is rapidly aging, straining pension and national health care systems and exacerbating a widening income gap in a country that has long considered itself uniquely egalitarian.

The number of Japanese aged 65 or older hit a record high of more than 27 million in 2007, or 21.5 per cent of the population, the government reported in May. Those with 75 years or older accounted for nearly 10 per cent.

The second-largest age group in the suicide study were Japanese in their 50s, accounting for 21.3 per cent of the total, though the number dropped 2.8 per cent in 2007 to 7,046 cases, the police agency said.

Health problems were believed to factor in 44 per cent of the total suicides in 2007, followed by economic and household difficulties, which accounted for 22 per cent, the survey said. No reason was known in 30 per cent of the cases. Depression alone was believed to cause nearly 20 per cent of suicides last year.

Japan has long battled its stubbornly high suicide rate, the ninth highest in the world. The government has earmarked $220 million for anti-suicide programmes to help those with depression and other mental health problems.—AP