The Impact of Alcohol, Divorce, and Unemployment on Suicide: A Multilevel Analysis

Abstract

Sociologists have taken little interest in alcohol abuse as a possible antecedent of suicide. However, a theoretical link between the two phenomena can be postulated that is consistent zith Durkheim's suicide theory. In this article, various data and methods are triangulated to scrutinize the relationship between alcohol and suicide. The control variables include, among others, divorce and unemployment. The empirical basis comprises ecological and time-series data for Sweden. Special efforts are made to integrate thefindings with resultsfrom existent individual-level studies. According to thefindings, a good third of the male suicides are attributable to the alcoholfactor. The impact of unemployment is also found to be fairly strong, and here the indirect effects seem to be at least as important as the direct ones. No relationship was found between divorce and suicide. The psychiatric and the sociological literature on suicide differ conspicuously in the role attributed to alcohol abuse as an antecedent of suicide. Hence, a large number of psychiatric and epidemiological studies single out alcohol abuse as