Elderly suicide 老年人自殺

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.

隨著中國老齡化，人們對老年人心理健康的擔憂與日俱增。世界范圍內(nèi)，老年人的自殺率比平均值更高。在中國尤其如此。那里70歲及以上的老人自殺率是普通人的四倍多，而美國約為四分之一。孤獨和衛(wèi)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.

這并不全是壞消息。20世紀90年代，中國的自殺率位居世界前列。毀滅性的自殘行為在農(nóng)村年輕女性中非常常見，因為她們可以很輕易地接觸到致命的農(nóng)藥。但在過去的20年里，中國自殺率的下降幅度超過了其他國家，這是因為化學制品的管控更嚴格了，并且移居到城市也使毒藥更難獲取到手。2019年，這一比例為9/10萬（十萬分之九），而美國為14/10萬，日本為19/10萬。

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歲及以上的人群中，自殺率自1990年就有所下降，從每10萬人中78人下降到35人。但從全部自殺人數(shù)的比例上來講，老年人占比從14%上升到了31%。部分原因是，老年人占人口比例增加了，從1990年的3.4%上升到了如今的6.8%。但在1990年至2017年間，老年人的自殺率在所有年齡組中下降是最少的。

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.

貧困，社會福利的缺乏以及內(nèi)部遷移都加劇了這個問題：年輕一代常常將他們年邁的家庭成員留在農(nóng)村。因出生率的下降，能夠照顧老年人的年輕人越來越少。今年3月，包括賓夕法尼亞大學的方漢明教授在內(nèi)的美國與中國的學者發(fā)布了一項研究。該研究使用了來自中國疾控中心的一組非常精細的數(shù)據(jù)，來闡明孤獨造成的影響。該研究指出，當家庭團聚時，65歲以上的老人的周自殺率在春節(jié)期間下降了10%（見圖表）。但節(jié)日并不影響年輕人的自殺率。

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.

情況可能會變得更糟。官方媒體稱，至少有一半的老年人是空巢老人。他們的人數(shù)正在激增。2013年，中國通過了一項法律，要求那些不和父母一起住的人，“經(jīng)常探望或者問候?！碑斎?，實施起來有難度。11月24日，政府發(fā)布了一項關于照顧老年人的意見，其中建議年輕人應和他們的父母親住一起，或就近居住。很多網(wǎng)上留言嘲笑此舉。有人問，取消限制農(nóng)民工在城市享受福利的戶籍制度怎么樣？只有那樣，老年人才能離開農(nóng)村，跟他們在城市的子女一起生活。