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every count and denominator on this site, as CSV, with notes.
Japan - 1995 to 2024 - 0 to 19 years
Japanese Pediatric Suicide Rates
Japan's pediatric suicide rate has risen by about three-quarters since 2009, and in 2024 more girls than boys died for the first time in this record. Japan also publishes a full method breakdown for children, which almost no country does — and it contains the strongest means-restriction evidence anywhere on this site.
FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SUICIDE RATES BEFORE YOU REPORT ANYTHING!
Suicides are expressed as "# per 100,000 per year," but in some jurisdictions this means that we are converting very small numbers into rates (14/400,000 population, for example). Because of this, small changes in numbers of death can create 'bumpy' rate charts. The whole purpose of the confidence intervals and statistical significance on this page is to help you understand what is simply noise and what may be a true change.
Suicides are expressed as "# per 100,000 per year," but in some jurisdictions this means that we are converting very small numbers into rates (14/400,000 population, for example). Because of this, small changes in numbers of death can create 'bumpy' rate charts. The whole purpose of the confidence intervals and statistical significance on this page is to help you understand what is simply noise and what may be a true change.
Deaths under age 10 are rare. The 0–17 denominator includes about 36 million children of each sex, most of them below the age at which suicide occurs at any measurable rate. Rates for 0–17 are therefore much lower than rates for adolescents alone, and the two are not interchangeable.
Be cautious comparing jurisdictions like states or countries; there are huge differences in culture, methods available, ethnicity, poverty, and other variables. It's even been shown that religious coroners are less likely to adjudicate findings of suicide than non-religious coroners!
Female: In 2024, the rate was 4.32 per 100,000 per year. The fitted trend has been rising 14.7% a year since 2016 (95% CI +13.2% to +16.1%); across 2000–2024 the model finds 2 changes of direction. Male: In 2024, the rate was 3.59 per 100,000 per year. The fitted trend has been rising 2.1% a year since 2000 (95% CI +1.8% to +2.4%); across 2000–2024 the model finds no change of direction.
Show the numbers behind this view
Latest year available: 2024 (3.95 per 100k/year)2024 (latest year)3.95/100k/yearages 0–19
Year-over-year: 0% (n.s., −9% to +11%)Year-over-year0%(n.s.)95% CI −9% to +11%2023: 3.93 per 100,000
2024 vs its trend: −13% (−20% to −5%)2024 vs its trend−13%95% CI −20% to −5%The trend through 2023 predicted 4.55 per 100,000
Highest year on record: 2024 (3.95 per 100k/year)Highest year on record3.95/100k/year2024
Japanese pediatric suicides by method
Japanese firearm restrictions lead to the lowest % (two out of thousands) of firearm suicides amongst youth.
Share of suicide deaths, ages 0–19, 2015–2024, with
counts at the right. Groups are in a fixed order, not ranked, so the chart
does not reshuffle itself between sexes or from one year to the next.
Japan is the clearest means-restriction evidence on this
site. Across 2015–2024 there were
2 firearm deaths among children aged
0–19 in the whole country — not 0.0%, not a rounding
artefact, 2 deaths in ten years. That is what
near-total civilian firearm prohibition looks like inside a national
mortality file, and it is the single strongest argument for restriction
anywhere in these data.
What does not disappear is the rest. Hanging and suffocation account
for 59% — 63%
of boys’ deaths against 54% of
girls’ — and as in every country there is no supply to
restrict, which is why the evidence there points to supervision, crisis
response and time-to-intervention rather than to removing an object. Falls
from height are 20% and moving objects or
vehicles 10%: together about three in every ten
deaths, and together the two means Japan has actually built against, with
platform doors and barriers. Poisoning is 7%
overall and is the most sex-patterned group here —
9% of girls’ deaths against
6% of boys’.
Read the whole distribution rather than its top line. Means restriction
works on availability, so the groups that are small here are as
informative as the group that is large.
Show the numbers behind this view
Method group
Deaths 2015–2024
Share
Share 2009–2014
Girls
Boys
Hanging and suffocation
3,964
59.2%
61.0%
53.7%
62.8%
Falling from a height
1,316
19.7%
15.9%
21.6%
18.4%
Moving object or vehicle
661
9.9%
8.1%
11.3%
8.9%
Poisoning
476
7.1%
10.1%
9.2%
5.7%
Firearm and explosive
2
0.0%
0.1%
0.0%
0.0%
Other and unspecified
276
4.1%
4.8%
4.2%
4.1%
Human-reviewed8 September 2026review process vetting-v1
Every page on this site was looked at by me, one at a time, before it was published. This is exactly what that involved, and what it did not.
What I checked
The numbers, year by year: deaths and the population they are counted against, from the file the page is built from.
That the arithmetic agrees with itself. A rate equals its deaths over its person-time, every interval contains the rate it belongs to, the sexes add up to the combined figure, and no year appears twice or goes missing. These are checked by machine on every build, and I read what it reports.
The case definition and the age band, against what the source publishes, and whether either changes part-way through the series.
The source, its link and the date it was retrieved.
Every chart view the page offers, drawn, and read.
WHO's own grade for the country's cause-of-death data, where there is one, and whether the page reads more confidently than that grade allows.
The prose, against the numbers it describes.
What I did not
I did not re-obtain the primary source documents or re-key the data from them. Where a national statistics office publishes a figure, this site carries that figure.
This is not a re-analysis. I have not attempted to correct, adjust or model around a country's counting; I have shown what it published and said what I know about how it was counted.
Being reviewed does not mean a series is comparable with any other. It means I have looked at it and said what it is.
Automated checks ran over every page and I read their output. A language model was used on some pages to suggest things worth a second look; nothing it produced is published, and nothing it said stands as a finding on its own.
A review is a point in time. If the data behind a page changes afterwards, the page does not ship again until it has been looked at again — that rule is enforced when the site is deployed, not left to memory.
Struggling with suicide?「死にたい」「消えたい」と感じていませんか。ひとりで悩まず、相談してください。
In the US and Canada, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The Trevor Project supports LGBTQ+ young people at 1-866-488-7386, or text START to 678-678.
If you are in Japan — 日本にお住まいの方へ： 「死にたい」「消えたい」と感じているときは、ひとりで悩まないでください。以下の相談窓口は、無料で利用できます。 ・#いのちSOS：0120-061-338（24時間） ・よりそいホットライン：0120-279-338（24時間） ・24時間子供SOSダイヤル：0120-0-78310（24時間・子ども向け） ・チャイルドライン：0120-99-7777（16時〜21時・18歳以下。どんなことでも話してね） ・こころの健康相談統一ダイヤル：0570-064-556 SNS相談を含む最新の一覧は、厚生労働省「まもろうよ こころ」（mhlw.go.jp/mamorouyokokoro）にあります。あなたは一人じゃありません。
Disclaimer: The content on this website is provided for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for professional diagnosis, treatment, or care. Always seek the advice of a qualified health professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition. If you are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, help is available now. Call or text 9-8-8 (Suicide Crisis Helpline — Canada & US, available 24/7), or go to your nearest emergency department. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.