Working themselves to death

New Internationalist, Jan-Feb, 2001

Social workers link Japan's high rate of suicide among middle-aged men with the nation's economic woes. Back in 1990, when the economy was stronger, 5,200 middle-aged men committed suicide. But in 1998 around 10,000 men in their forties and fifties killed themselves. The social cost of this is staggering -- 12,000 children lost their mothers or fathers to suicide in 1998, four times the number who lost a parent in a road accident. But the subject remains taboo in society and many fail to notice or help ease work-related stress. `I chose this way because I couldn't achieve results,' says businessperson Masayuki Tanaka in his suicide note, `even though I worked until becoming completely exhausted.'

Far Eastern Economic Review: www.feer.com