Japan: "The Lonely End"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Three months ago in an apartment on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan, Haruki Watanabe died alone. For weeks his body slowly decomposed, slouched in its own fluids and surrounded by fetid, fortnight-old food. He died of self-neglect, solitude, and a suspected heart problem. At 60, Watanabe, wasn’t old, nor was he especially poor. He had no friends, no job, no wife, and no concerned children. His son hadn’t spoken to him in years, nor did he want to again.
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Watanabe was, at 60 years old, the average age of most male victims, and having suffered from a heart problem, he died in the manner most common to kodokushi.

“Around 90 percent of the cases I deal with are men,” Koremura says. “Unlike women, men seem incapable of integrating themselves into a community when they live alone.”

Watanabe was a child of the “boom years” and of the “Japanese dream,” and it is therefore probable that his death was linked to the faltering economy. In Japan, the identity of many businessmen, or “salarymen” as they are commonly known, is fused with that of their business. During the boom years many of these workers sacrificed family and friends for the growth of their companies. However, when the Japanese economy eventually crashed in the early ’90s, many of these salarymen lost their jobs or were forced into smaller, less prestigious roles with less social security. Having lost their status they found they had no purpose in life. Scott North argues that “the fact that most deaths are between 60 and 64 [years old] supports the idea that separation from the workplace community and inability to adapt to retirement may contribute to isolated deaths.”'