The perils of returning to school—New insights into the impact of school holidays on youth suicides

Abstract

Taking advantage of temporal and geographical variations in the timing of school holidays in Germany, this paper finds that school holidays cause a 16 percent decrease in the probability of youth suicide. This effect is constant across different types of holidays (fall, Christmas, winter, Easter, Pentecost, and summer). Moreover, we find evidence of a spike in suicide propensity in the first two days following the end of school holidays. The results are robust to the inclusion of a series of control variables and to different definitions of youth. Overall, this paper suggests that school holidays have a beneficial impact on the well-being of students and that suicide prevention efforts are particularly important in the days following the end of holidays.