MidnightCall Magazine
News From Israel MagazineElderly Suicides At Record Numbers
The number of elderly suicides in Japan surged 9 percent to a record high last year, fueled by mounting health and economic worries among seniors in a rapidly aging society, the government said.
The deaths helped push the total number of suicides to 33,093 in 2007, a 2.9 percent increase and the second-highest annual tally on record. The number of elderly suicides eclipsed the previous record of 11,529 in 2003.
Japan’s society is rapidly aging, straining pension and national health-care systems and exacerbating a widening income gap in a country that has long considered itself uniquely egalitarian.
-Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 June 2008, pg. A9
Japan is by far the richest nation in the world. When it comes to healthcare, they have the best. Japanese have the highest life expectancy and the second lowest infant mortality in the world, 2.8 per 1,000, just behind the leader Sweden with 2.75 (U.S. 6.3). What this article shows is that riches and luxury are not the deciding factor for happiness of life. But an even more important issue is eternity, and there our Lord says, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
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