TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s suicide rate has jumped in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among women and children, although it did in the first wave when the government offered generous handouts to people recording.
The suicide rate in July-October increased by 16% compared to the same period a year earlier, according to a study by researchers at Hong Kong University and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, a clear reversal of the February-June decline with 14%.
“Unlike normal economic conditions, this pandemic excessively affects the psychological health of children, adolescents and women (especially housewives),” the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior on Friday.
The study found that the early decline in suicides was influenced by factors such as government subsidies, reduced working hours and school closure.
But the decline was reversed – with the suicide rate rising by 37% for women, about five times the increase among men – as the protracted pandemic of women dominating, hurting and increasing the burden on working mothers increased, while domestic violence increased , reads the report.
The study, based on data from the Ministry of Health from November 2016 to October 2020, found that the child suicide rate increased by 49% in the second wave, which corresponds to the period after a nationwide school closure.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga this month issued a COVID-19 state of emergency for Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures in an effort to stem the revival. He expanded it this week to seven more prefectures, including Osaka and Kyoto.
Taro Kono, minister of administrative and regulatory reform, told Reuters on Thursday that although the government would consider expanding the state of emergency, it “could not kill the economy.”
‘People are worried about COVID-19. But many people also committed suicide because they lost their jobs, lost their income and could not see the hope, ‘he said. “We need to find the balance between managing COVID-19 and managing the economy.”
Reporting by Eimi Yamamitsu; Edited by William Mallard