This is a typically moronic Japan Times article sourced from Kyodo.
Suicide is at the top of the list in Japan because other causes of death, especially accidents have been sharply reduced.
Data for the US for exactly the same age cohort is not available but a number of recent reports have said essentially the same thing as this CNN report.
The total death rate for 10- to 19-year-olds in the United States declined 33% between 1999 and 2013 but then suddenly soared 12% between 2013 and 2016, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF).
The report, released Friday, revealed that this rise in deaths is attributable to injury-related deaths, such as traffic accident fatalities, drug overdoses, homicides and suicides, as opposed to illness, such as cancer or heart disease.
Among 10- to 19-year-olds around the world, road traffic injuries were the leading cause of death in 2015, followed by lower respiratory infections and suicide, according to the World Health Organization.
To move suicide down from first place in the cause of death league table, it is clear what the Japanese government needs to do: increase the number of young people that get killed in traffic accidents. Homicides due to American-style gang warfare would also help as would drug overdose deaths. Getting the cooperation of industry to increase air pollution to Chinese or Indian big city levels would do wonders in terms of the numbers killed by respiratory disease.
As is their want, the Japan Times deleted my comment pointing out that with a 1, 2, 3 ranking, if you want to decrease the relative importance of 1, you increase the importance of 2 and 3.
It's the same for measures of gender equality. The female labour force participation rate in Japan is high and growing but still lower than the male rate of 85% with the result that Japan gets a bad rap for gender equality base on the female/male ratio.
That's easy enough to fix. Adopt policies the throw guys out of work. Exporting manufacturing jobs is a good way to do this. If male employment declines more than female employment, the gender gap is reduced and society is better off, or at least that's what advocates of reducing this gender gap seem to be saying.
That's easy enough to fix. Adopt policies the throw guys out of work. Exporting manufacturing jobs is a good way to do this. If male employment declines more than female employment, the gender gap is reduced and society is better off, or at least that's what advocates of reducing this gender gap seem to be saying.
