Originally published 2020-12-04.
In October 2020, Japan's National Police Agency counted 2,153 suicides. At that point the country's health ministry had recorded 2,087 deaths from Covid-19 since the pandemic began. One month of suicides had overtaken roughly ten months of virus deaths, and the gap was widest among women, whose suicides were up almost 83% on October 2019. Among men the rise was about 22%.
Those numbers travelled around the world as a warning about the hidden costs of the pandemic. They deserve that attention, but they also need context: what drove the increase, why the comparison is less simple than it looks, and what happened once the full-year data arrived.
What the October 2020 figures showed
The monthly police data marked a sharp turn. Japan had spent a decade bringing suicides down, reaching about 20,000 in 2019, the lowest annual total since national records began in 1978. During the first half of 2020 the count actually fell. From July onwards it began to climb, and between July and October monthly suicides rose by about 16%.
October stood out because the increase was so lopsided. Women still accounted for a minority of deaths, as they do in almost every country, but their numbers were growing far faster than men's. Researchers and support groups had seen early signs of this over the summer; October made it impossible to ignore.
Why women were hit hardest
Japan's response to Covid relied on voluntary restraint rather than strict lockdowns, and its virus death rate stayed low by international standards. The economic shock, however, landed unevenly. Many of the jobs that disappeared were part-time or temporary roles in hotels, restaurants and shops, sectors where women make up a large share of the workforce.
Several other pressures piled on at the same time:
- Unpaid care. When schools closed in spring 2020, much of the extra childcare fell on mothers, often alongside paid work.
- Isolation. Calls to stay home cut people off from friends, colleagues and informal support, especially those living alone.
- Financial insecurity. Lost shifts and pay cuts pushed some women, including single mothers, close to poverty.
- Mental health strain. A global survey by the charity CARE found 27% of women reporting worse mental health during the pandemic, compared with 10% of men.
Michiko Ueda, an associate professor at Waseda University in Tokyo who studies suicide, told CNN at the time that the rise was striking precisely because Japan had avoided harsh restrictions: "We didn't even have a lockdown, and the impact of Covid is very minimal compared to other countries." Her worry was that countries with deeper economic damage might see similar or larger increases later.
A long-standing problem, not a new one
Suicide has been a major public health issue in Japan for decades. Rates jumped during the financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 and stayed high for more than ten years, peaking in 2003. In 2016 the rate was about 18.5 per 100,000 people, well above the global average of roughly 10.6 cited by CNN.
The reasons are layered. Police data on recorded motives point mainly to health problems, both mental and physical, followed by money worries, family difficulties and work. Long working hours and exhaustion play a documented role, as do loneliness after retirement and the burden of personal debt. Stigma around seeking mental health care has historically kept many people from getting help early.
Japan has responded with a series of national plans since the 2000s, including funding for local prevention programmes, tighter rules on lenders, screening for mothers after childbirth and, in 2021, the appointment of Tetsushi Sakamoto as the country's first minister for loneliness. The decline from 2010 to 2019 suggests those efforts were having an effect before the pandemic interrupted the trend.
Why the headline comparison needs care
Setting one month of suicides beside a cumulative Covid toll makes for a powerful headline, but the two numbers measure different things over different periods. Japan records around 20,000 suicides in a normal year, so an average month brings roughly 1,700 deaths even without a pandemic. The meaningful signal is not that October's suicides exceeded Covid deaths; it is that they were well above the level for the same month a year earlier.
It is also wrong to read the comparison as proof that Covid itself was unimportant, or that pandemic measures alone caused every additional death. Suicide almost always reflects several factors at once. Economic hardship, isolation and existing mental illness interact in ways that headline statistics cannot separate.
What the full-year and later data showed
Preliminary figures from the health ministry, published in January 2021, put Japan's 2020 total at 20,919 suicides, a rise of 3.7% and the first annual increase in more than a decade. Suicides among women rose by more than 14%, while those among men fell slightly. More than 300 children and students died by suicide in the eight months to November, nearly 30% more than a year earlier.
In 2021 the total eased a little to 20,830, but deaths among women edged up again. A study published in 2022 estimated that Japan saw around 8,000 more suicides between March 2020 and June 2022 than would have been expected without the pandemic, linking most of the excess to economic and social disruption. By 2024 the national rate stood at about 15.3 per 100,000, still short of the government's goal of a 30% reduction from 2015 levels by 2026.
How Japan compared with the US and the UK
Other wealthy countries also carry a heavy suicide burden, which helps put Japan's numbers in perspective. In the United States, about 48,000 people died by suicide in 2018, an age-adjusted rate of 14.2 per 100,000, according to the CDC. The UK registered about 6,500 suicides that year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The difference in 2020 was Covid's direct toll. By late that year the US had passed a quarter of a million virus deaths and the UK had recorded tens of thousands, figures far larger than their annual suicide counts. In Japan the order was reversed, which is precisely why the October data drew so much notice.
Lessons and where to find help
The Japanese experience showed that a public health emergency can hurt people well beyond those who catch the disease. Support for workers in insecure jobs, help for parents juggling care, and ways of staying connected during isolation all matter for mental health, not only for the economy.
It also showed how quickly community efforts can grow. Anata no Ibasho ("A Place for You"), a 24-hour text and online chat service founded in March 2020 by 21-year-old Koki Ozora, was soon answering more than 200 contacts a day, mostly from women, with around 600 volunteers.
If you are struggling or worried about someone, talk to a doctor or a trusted person, and contact a crisis line in your country. Find A Helpline lists free, verified services in more than 175 countries. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.
Sources: CNN, 28 November 2020; Dhaka Tribune (AFP), 22 January 2021; Wikipedia: Suicide in Japan; CDC NCHS Data Brief 362; ONS: Suicides in the UK, 2018 registrations; Find A Helpline.
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