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While Japan is famous for its animation, food, pop-culture, it’s also infamous for its extremely high suicide rates. Many Japanese students and salarymen succumb to the pressures of school and work by taking their own lives. There is little knowledge about what factors increase the risk of suicide, but recent research has found that people, namely adolescents, born between January 1 and April 1, are 30% more likely to commit suicide.
April 1 may be a day of jokes and pranks for some, but in Japan, the beginning of April means a new fiscal year and the start of a new school year. Since school always starts on the first Monday of April, federal law states that students will enter first grade if, and only if, they are six years old by April 1 of that year. Born on April 2? You wait until the next year to start school.
A research team in Osaka, headed by Associate Professor Tetsuya Matsubayashi, in collaboration with an American team from Syracuse University, hypothesized that the students born between January 1 and April 1, the youngest in the cohort, are at a higher risk of suicide.
They base their hypothesis on the idea that this group is developmentally behind their peers, who can be nearly a year older. While it doesn’t seem like much, in childhood, a year can make a big difference in mental, physical and emotional abilities. Because of this, kids born in that young group are more likely to fall behind their older, more developed, peers in both academics and sports. This disadvantage, the researchers argue, is enough to significantly increase pressure and stress in school for some students, which could eventually push them to suicide.
The teams used information from people born between 1974 and 1985 and looked at those who committed suicide between the ages of 15-25, then separated their findings based on birth date. They found that there were 30 percent more suicides of students born in the last week of March (March 26-April 1), the youngest kids, compared to students born in the first week of April (April 2-8), the oldest kids.
There have been some other studies, though not so many, comparing April-born and March-born people, including one which found that March-born people earned four percent less income than their older counterparts.
Upon announcing their results, Matsubayashi emphasized his belief that Japan needs to drop this current way of determining when students start school and return to the old way, a way that many other countries are starting to adopt again: kids should start school when they are developmentally ready. In “the old days” of Japan, that meant being in good health and knowing right from left. While those standards of readiness may have to be tweaked, the proposal, in general, makes sense. We’ll be on the look-out for any developments on this front, but a change like this will take some time, if ever implemented.
Source: Zaeega
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© Japan Today
17 Comments
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Disillusioned
Study shows that, people born in Japan are at high risk of suicide!
mtuffizi
such a beautiful country, should find a way to make his people there more happy with less stress.
Maverick7
Come on JT . Instead of putting up news about yet another reason why someone might kill themselves . This time it's if you were born between Jan 1st and Apr 1st your at greater risk . Come on ! How comes up with these figgers ? Why not put more news up to try and help these people and really try and find out the true reasons why . Also a few help line phone numbers and websites put up now and then to help those who are feeling suicidal might help. Reading about yet another suicide is bad but when it's about a 15yr old child that's when you ask yourself why ? Japan has one of the highest suicides in the world and putting up if you were born between Jan 1st and Apr 1st is not gonna help at all.
Kagemusha
I actually feel that it could help if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and read this article and realize the obvious fact of your birth date my actually influence how you experienced school/work and that maybe how you're feeling has an actual reason. This can ground a suicidal impulse to simply know that there is a reason, any reason, for how you are feeling.
Japan has high suicide rates because of its work culture (applies to school too) and its hierarchical system that lends itself to power harassment. There are other factors that feed into these, such as a culture of acquiescence and conflict avoidance.
smithinjapan
Maverick: " Japan has one of the highest suicides in the world and putting up if you were born between Jan 1st and Apr 1st is not gonna help at all."
Your comment has some good suggestions, but you should be directing them at the government and other relevant institutions; JT posts articles written and published in other sources. They aren't the ones who made this up.
Speaking of, the whole thing is ludicrous. The season in which you are born has NOTHING to do with whether or not you are likely to commit suicide later in life. Instead of basing it solely on the season, why not look at the more obvious social issues they use as 'proof', like the fact that if you are born in those months you must start school at a younger age since the school year starts in April (or a year later than peers, if you wait); or that they are the 'youngest group in the cohort', etc.
Better yet, what do they think are the potential benefits of this obviously wasteful study? Are they going to say -- "Yeah, we need to repopulate, big time, but please avoid fornication from April to the mid-June, please. Excuse me"?
Goodlucktoyou
How do you spell "bollocks"?
Maverick7
Smithinjapan. Sorry yeah your right . I should of said the government . That's who I was really referring too. I know that the JT only print out what news they have given them. I just wish there was more help lines and people to talk to about their problems . Seems that all the government does is throw money at every problem they have then they wonder why the country is in so much dept . With the low birth rate , high suicide rate and ageing Society plus the country with the most people over 100yrs old . This problem will take years to sort out . By that time I'll be brown bread and my children's children will have to foot the bill.
Aly Rustom
Studies also show that people living in japan under Abenomics will show a VERY high rate of suicide.
Wc626
Of course. This is a culture where nobody asks for help. They feel it's embarrassing and don't want to burden others.
Japanese do not communicate their distress to friends, colleagues and even immediate family members. Worse, most of society neglects them.
We all have or might have had some trouble in life. It's okay to ask friends, family to help you get you back on track.
smithinjapan
Maverick: "I just wish there was more help lines and people to talk to about their problems . Seems that all the government does is throw money at every problem they have then they wonder why the country is in so much dept . "
Agree 100%. I'm pretty tired of society ignoring the issue, or stigmatizing people with depression to the point where they don't seek help, as well as being sick of government half-measures and back patting. We don't need AKB or other celebrities posing for photos and smiling half-naked and saying, "It's all good!"; we need more TWENTY-FOUR HOUR hotlines, seven days a week, and serious programs and dissemination of information to help people in need. Not one week awareness campaigns, not new groups that waste money and spend years on 'research' to come up with, "People kill themselves because they are depressed" results.
They need to know there is help available, and there needs to be MORE help to address the massive problem with depression, stress, and suicide here.
mukashiyokatta
What is the difference between "new study says..." and "new study suggests..."??
sighclops
Another week, another suicide on my train line here in Tokyo. They occur DAILY. When is the government going to man up and tackle this issue? It's only getting worse...
NZ2011
Highly sceptical, need more data.
Correlation doesn't equal causation.
What is the mechanism that birthdate would effect this?
If age and school year make difference then this should show a pattern internationally.
I think the answers are much more obvious, basically that there are people that clearly need help, in public and in workplaces, schools I assume too, but all to often people literally turn the other way, step over and aside.
Again, look at the education system and really make some changes in employment, and then have services for people when they need it.
Frederic Bastiat
"Japan has high suicide rates because of its work/like a slave/ culture (applies to school too) and its hierarchical system that lends itself to power harassment. There are other factors that feed into these, such as a culture of acquiescence and conflict avoidance."
Yes, I agree. So, it shshould come as no surprise that the group at highest risk are middle-aged working men.
Thunderbird2
@NZ2011
Indeed... I was born on Jan 1st and I've never had a suicidal thought in my 50-odd years on this planet. True, I'm not Japanese and haven't suffered the work and peer pressures that Japanese people go through, but still...
rainyday
Hate to nitpick but there is no such thing as "Federal law" in Japan. It is not a federal state.
Christopher Glen
Don't you know that Japan has commitees who sit down and discuss these things?