Living, and coping, in the city

The rate of suicide is falling in China, and while experts attribute the decline to a number of causes, the large-scale urbanization that has taken place in recent decades is being hailed as a major factor, as Yang Wanli reports.

In the past three decades, many Chinese people have moved from rural areas to the cities in search of work, a process of urbanization that has helped transform China into the world's second-largest economy, providing jobs and raising the standard of living for millions of people.

Urbanization may also be responsible, at least partly, for a recent dramatic decline in the number of suicides in China, according to experts. In the past 10 years, the number of suicides has fallen so steeply that the country, which used to sit near the top of the global list, now has one of the lowest rates in the world. Many observers have attributed the decline to the sharp fall in the number of women committing suicide, especially in rural areas.