Elderly suicide 老年人自杀

Old and sad

Suicides by rural women have declined. Now the Elderly are the biggest concern

第一段：

As china ages, worries are mounting about the mental health of its Elderly population. Globally, suicide rates among old people tend to be higher than average. In China this is especially true. People there aged 70 and above kill themselves at more than four times the rate of the general population, compared with around a quarter more in America. Loneliness and inadequate health care are among the main reasons.

随着中国老龄化，人们对老年人心理健康的担忧与日俱增。世界范围内，老年人的自杀率比平均值更高。在中国尤其如此。那里70岁及以上的老人自杀率是普通人的四倍多，而美国约为四分之一。孤独和卫生保健不健全是主要原因之一。

第二段：

It is not all bad news. In the 1990s China’s suicide rate was among the highest in the world. Fatal self-harm was strikingly common among young women in the countryside, who had easy access to lethal pesticides. But in the past 20 years, China’s rate has declined more than any other country’s, mainly as a result of stricter controls on those chemicals and migration to cities, where such poisons are even harder to obtain. In 2019 it was nine per 100,000, compared with 14 in America and 19 in Japan.

这并不全是坏消息。20世纪90年代，中国的自杀率位居世界前列。毁灭性的自残行为在农村年轻女性中非常常见，因为她们可以很轻易地接触到致命的农药。但在过去的20年里，中国自杀率的下降幅度超过了其他国家，这是因为化学制品的管控更严格了，并且移居到城市也使毒药更难获取到手。2019年，这一比例为9/10万（十万分之九），而美国为14/10万，日本为19/10万。

第三段：

Among people aged 70 or over, the suicide rate has also dropped since 1990, from 78 per 100,000 to 35. But as a proportion of all suicides, those by Elderly people have risen from 14% to 31%. In part, that is because the Elderly’s share of the population has risen, too, from 3.4% in 1990 to 6.8% today. But between 1990 and 2017 suicide rates among the old fell the least of any age group.

在70岁及以上的人群中，自杀率自1990年就有所下降，从每10万人中78人下降到35人。但从全部自杀人数的比例上来讲，老年人占比从14%上升到了31%。部分原因是，老年人占人口比例增加了，从1990年的3.4%上升到了如今的6.8%。但在1990年至2017年间，老年人的自杀率在所有年龄组中下降是最少的。

第四段：

Poverty and a lack of social services exacerbate the problem, as does internal migration: younger people often leave older family members behind in the countryside. Because of falling birth rates, Elderly people have fewer youngsters to look after them. Research published in March by a group of academics in America and China, including Hanming Fang of the University of Pennsylvania, uses an unusually granular set of data from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to demonstrate the impact of loneliness. It shows that the weekly suicide rate among the Elderly—those over 65, in this case—decreases by more than one-tenth during the Chinese New Year holiday, when families reunite (see chart). The holiday does not appear to affect suicides among younger people.

贫困，社会福利的缺乏以及内部迁移都加剧了这个问题：年轻一代常常将他们年迈的家庭成员留在农村。因出生率的下降，能够照顾老年人的年轻人越来越少。今年3月，包括宾夕法尼亚大学的方汉明教授在内的美国与中国的学者发布了一项研究。该研究使用了来自中国疾控中心的一组非常精细的数据，来阐明孤独造成的影响。该研究指出，当家庭团聚时，65岁以上的老人的周自杀率在春节期间下降了10%（见图表）。但节日并不影响年轻人的自杀率。

第五段：

The situation may get worse. At least half of the Elderly are empty-nesters, state media say. Their numbers are surging. In 2013 China passed a law requiring those who live apart from Elderly parents to “frequently visit or send greetings”. It has, of course, proved difficult to enforce. On November 24th the government published guidelines on care for the Elderly, including advice that young adults should live with, or close to, their parents. Many online comments were derisory. How about scrapping household-registration rules that restrict migrants’ access to welfare in the cities, some asked? Only then might ageing parents leave the villages and join their urban offspring.

情况可能会变得更糟。官方媒体称，至少有一半的老年人是空巢老人。他们的人数正在激增。2013年，中国通过了一项法律，要求那些不和父母一起住的人，“经常探望或者问候。”当然，实施起来有难度。11月24日，政府发布了一项关于照顾老年人的意见，其中建议年轻人应和他们的父母亲住一起，或就近居住。很多网上留言嘲笑此举。有人问，取消限制农民工在城市享受福利的户籍制度怎么样？只有那样，老年人才能离开农村，跟他们在城市的子女一起生活。