Yale University economics professor sparks outrage proposing mass suicide in Japan

A Yale University professor has sparked outrage by suggesting the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is a mass suicide and disembowelment. 

Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, defended his views in a New York Times profile this weekend after he made the remarks on a streaming news program in 2021.

‘I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,’ he said at the time. ‘In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?’ 

Seppuku was a ritual disembowelment that was forced upon samurai who had brought dishonor to themselves in 19th century Japan. 

Yusuke Narita (pictured right), an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has sparked outrage by suggesting the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is a mass suicide and disembowelment

Narita told the New York Times he was ‘taken out of context’ but he has also said that euthanasia could become mandatory in the future, his comments forcing a backlash nonetheless. 

He claims that this would allow younger generations to make their way in business, politics and other aspects of society that the older generation refuses to leave. 

Japan has a low birthrate and the most public debt in the first world. The country has 1.34 births per women, below the United States’ 1.65. 

Last year, Japan saw its population plunge by more than 600,000 due to declining fertility rates and a rapidly aging population. 

The country’s population dropped for the eleventh consecutive year and was down by 644,000, according to its Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. 

The overall population fell as deaths exceeded births by 609,000 and as people who moved out of the country outnumbered those who moved in by 35,000.

Yasuke’s comments not only made people angry, but won him a audience – he has over 569,000 Twitter followers.  

He frequently shows up in Japanese media wearing casual clothing and presents himself much like a radio shock jock, his Twitter bio proclaiming: ‘The things you’re told you’re not allowed to say are usually true.’ 

‘I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,’ he said at the time. ‘In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?’

Japan has a low birthrate and the most public debt in the first world. The country has 1.34 births per women, below the United States’ 1.65

Japan, which has seen its birthrate decline for many years, could potentially ‘disappear’ according to Musk. Above: Data from the Japan Bureau of Statistics reveals the decline of population and negative rate change since 2010 in Japan

Narita was asked to defend his views in a class earlier this year and did by showing a clip from the 2019 film Midsommar, in which a cult forces an older member to jump off a cliff. 

‘Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,’ Narita said. ‘So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.’ 

His comments received renewed attention when social media discovered them in January, with a sociologist proclaiming them as ‘hatred toward the vulnerable.’ 

Narita told the Times he was ‘primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years.’

He allows that the way he said it was meant as a metaphor for how an older generation must be phased out and he has softened his language since. 

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in late January that the birth rate was a crisis that was in a ‘now or never’ solution state

Narita told the Times he was ‘primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years’

‘I should have been more careful about their potential negative connotations,’ Narita said. ‘After some self-reflection, I stopped using the words last year.’

He’s not alone, however, as one of the major players in the country’s Liberal Democratic Party has suggested old people need to ‘hurry up and die.’

Narita spreads his message on social media and in comedy shows, energy drink ads and even via TikTok impressionists.  

Surveys have even suggested that the public in Japan supports voluntary euthanasia.

Narita continues to emphasize that he’s softening his position and not to be taken literally, but the discussion is coming. 

‘I am not advocating its introduction,’ he said. ‘I predict it to be more broadly discussed.’