Suicidality, Economic Shocks, and Egalitarian Gender Norms.

Aaron Reeves,David Stuckler

doi:10.1093/esr/jcv084

Abstract

Durkheim conceived of suicide as a product of social integration and regulation. Although the sociology of suicide has focused on the role of disintegration, to our knowledge, the interaction between integration and regulation has yet to be empirically evaluated. In this article we test whether more egalitarian gender norms, an important form of macro-regulation, protects men and women against suicidality during economic shocks. Using cross-national data covering 20 European Union countries from the years 1991 to 2011, including the recent economic crises in Europe, we first assessed the relation between unemployment and suicide. Then we evaluated potential effect modification using three measures of gender equality, the gender ratio in labour force participation, the gender pay gap, and women’s representation in parliament using multiple measures. We found no evidence of a significant, direct link between greater gender equality and suicide rates in either men or women. However, a greater degree of gender equality helped protect against suicidality associated with economic shocks. At relatively high levels of gender equality in Europe, such as those seen in Sweden and Austria, the relationship between rising unemployment rates and suicide in men disappeared altogether. Our findings suggest that more egalitarian forms of gender regulation may help buffer the suicidal consequences of economic shocks, especially in men.

Highlights

The sociology of suicide, especially the tradition of scholarship influenced by Durkheim, has tended to focus on the roles of integration and disintegration in suicide risk (Abrutyn and Mueller, 2014)
First we assess the well-known link between unemployment and suicide (Hypothesis 1) and we examine whether female suicides rates are higher in countries with high levels of gender equality (Hypothesis 2)
Consistent with previous work, we find that a 1 percentagepoint rise in male unemployment is linked with a 0.72 per cent rise in the male suicide rate (95 per cent confidence interval [CI]: 0.22 to 1.21 per cent)

Summary

Introduction

The sociology of suicide, especially the tradition of scholarship influenced by Durkheim, has tended to focus on the roles of integration and disintegration in suicide risk (Abrutyn and Mueller, 2014). The existing literature has been relatively silent on the importance of regulation, in what Wray and colleagues recently describe in the Annual Review of Sociology as the ‘neglected theme of regulation’ (2011: 514). This dearth of evidence is perhaps surprising given that Durkheim conceived of population-level suicides as a product of both integration and regulation. Quite possibly the most extensively researched area in the sociology of suicide is on economic crisis. The recessions led to mass unemployment and, with it, a large jump in suicide rates (Reeves et al, 2014) (Figure 1)

Methods

Results

Conclusion