A painful end

By S.C.S. and K.N.C.

The high rate of suicide in Asia

SUICIDE is sometimes dismissed as a curse of insecure youth or a regrettable answer to middle-aged worries. But across the OECD, the rate is highest among the elderly. In parts of Asia, it amounts to a crisis. In China and South Korea, the rate of suicide for those over 65 is more than four times of that for people under 35. In Japan, the elderly is not the age group with the highest rate—only because the share of suicides by the country’s 35- to 64-year-olds is among the highest in the world. Yet in South Korea, the situation is particularly devastating. Old people kill themselves at a rate almost four times higher than the OECD average. The proportion has also risen faster than in any other age group, and is currently five times its 1990 level. And half of South Korea’s elderly live in relative poverty, the most destitute in the OECD. See full article.