Suicide climbs among elderly

Increasing medical cost and relocation from family seen as causes for surge

BEIJING - The suicide rate among the elderly in urban areas has become alarmingly high in recent years, an expert warned at a recent seminar at Peking University.

The annual suicide rate among elderly Chinese aged 70 to 74 in cities, for example, surged above 33 per 100,000 people between 2002 and 2008, up from 13 per 100,000 people in the 1990s, said Jing Jun, a professor from the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University.