23% of Japanese have thought of suicide

TOKYO - Japanese Cabinet Office released the result of a survey on Wednesday, saying that about 23.4 percent Japanese adults have thought of committing suicide, 4.3 percent higher than last time in 2008.

The data was collected form Japanese adults aged 20 and older in January, total 3,000 copies are issued and 2,017 effective copies are received.

By age, people in their 20s have stronger suicidal tendency, 28. 4 percent was considering suicide. And 36.2 percent of those young people said they had the thought of killing themselves just during the past year.

By sex, the ratio stood at 27.1 percent for women and 19.1 percent for men.

The Cabinet Office said the result "probably reflects the difficulty of finding jobs amid an economic slump, an increase in nonregular employees and weak personal relations".

On the question about how to overcome the suicidal desire, 38.8 percent said they would turn to some close friends or families for help, 38.6 percent said they would pay more time on work or hobbies to ignore the suicidal wishes.