From Industrial Relations to Personal Relations:
The Coercion of Society
Youth Suicide and Youth Unemployment
Barry Maley
Suicide, as a cause of death in the general population,
lags a long way behind cancer and cerebrovascular disease.
The overall suicide rate is about 17 per 100,000 of
the population per annum. This is less than one tenth
of the rate of cancer at 180 per 100,000 of population
(ABS, 1994:55).
However, for younger age groups, which have low overall
rates of mortality, suicide now competes with road
accidents as the leading cause of death. In 1992,
in the 15-24 year-old age group there were 455 suicides.
Consequently, any change in the suicide rate for young
people has significant effects on the overall level
of youth mortality. In the 1980s and l990s youth suicide
rates increased at the same time as suicide
rates for older age groups were decreasing (ABS,
1994:55).
The increase for young males, in particular, has been
quite dramatic. The figures have led many commentators
to begin searching for social, economic and cultural
changes specific for youth, and especially for young
males, that might be implicated in these changes.
Table 1 summarises the relevant statistics.
In terms of international comparisons, Table 2 shows
that the youth suicide rate in Australia is the fourth
highest in the world.
Sex Differentials
Men in general are four times more likely to commit
suicide than women. In the 15-24 age groups, males
commit suicide five times more frequently than females
(ABS, 1994:56). One factor here may be that men bent
on suicide do it more effectively than women and by
more violent and certain means---such as guns, explosives
and hanging. Females use poisons and sedatives which
are slower and whose effects may be nullified by prompt
treatment.
Urban/Rural Suicide Rates
For men and women of all ages, there is little difference
in the suicide rates for urban and rural areas. But
the suicide rate for young men in rural areas is markedly
different, as shown in Table 3. This may have something
to do with the readier availability of firearms for
young men in rural areas, perhaps in synergistic interaction
with intensification of some of the socio- economic
factors to be discussed later, in those areas.
Why Do People Kill Themselves?
Suicide is, of course, a very private act, the precise
reasons for which in individual cases can rarely be
known to others. Most psychiatrists naturally emphasise
mental states in talking about causation and say that
it is due to such things as depression, schizophrenia,
drug addiction, alcoholism, physical suffering and
personality disorders. Yet there are 'studies which
indicate that mental illness is not a necessary precondition
of suicidal behaviour' and that 'only a small proportion
of people committing suicide have been under psychiatric
observation or treatment' (Ruzicka and Choi, 1993:114).
As for substance-abuse suicides, the real question
is: 'Why the substance abuse in the first place'?
Neither mental disturbance nor substance abuse explains
the overall rates of suicide or sudden or major variations
in those rates (Ruzicka and Choi, 1993:114).
At the aggregated level, it is clear that we must
look to broadly social factors to help explain national
suicide rates and variations in those rates. Demographers
and sociologists have long noted the statistical correlations
between changing social conditions and changing patterns
of suicide. Indeed, the examples are multiple and
fascinating and this has prompted speculation about
underlying causes.
Durkheim and Social Integration
Almost 100 years ago, in his classic study of suicide,
the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1897),
argued for the social causation of suicide. He showed
how suicide rates within and between countries varied
with social circumstances. Catholics and Jews killed
themselves less frequently than Protestants, and the
married killed themselves less frequently than the
unmarried or the divorced. There were fewer suicides
in war than in times of peace, and more in times of
economic crisis; and so on.
He hypothesised that the two critical social variables
were what he called 'social integration' and 'social
regulation'.
There is a huge literature on these two variables
and the nature of the social realities they purport
to represent. For our purposes here, I intend to amalgamate
the elements Durkheim identified into the single variable
of social integration and to contrast two polar kinds
of individual situation: the socially integrated individual;
and the socially detached, isolated or unintegrated
individual.
Integration, then, is the extent to which individuals
are tied in to their societies and feel personal fulfilment
in sustaining a variety of social and economic attachments
made possible by those ties. It is the idea of social
and interpersonal embeddedness. To be 'embedded' or
'integrated' in this way is also to accept the moral
authority of the embedding social relationship or association.
It is the regulation of the relationship by this authority
which Durkheim has in mind when he identifies 'regulation'
as a key variable. But, as I said, let's keep it simple
by treating integration as entailing both ideas.
Integration has the further connotation of cohesiveness,
or what Durkheim calls the 'common conscience' of shared
sentiments and beliefs.
What today we might call detached and isolated individualism,
is the opposite state of affairs, where individuals
lack firm social and interpersonal ties and do not
share in the common conscience, or find themselves
alienated from it. They live lives only tenuously
connected to the collective life or to interpersonal
relations; or they find their bonds to it suddenly
severed---such as in bereavement. Indeed, 'bereavement',
in a metaphorical sense, is an apt term for various
kinds of social and interpersonal loss that need not
entail the death of a person. The important notion
is the idea of social and/or interpersonal isolation
in a spiritual, mental or emotional sense. You will
remember that Socrates chose to swallow the hemlock
rather than face exile and that kind of life.
So, in these conditions, Durkheim argues, such an
individual, denied all hope of fulfilling his nature
as a socially purposive and emotionally transacting
being; and cut off from, or denied, a meaningful place
in the social order, finds life intolerable and ends
it. Insofar as social circumstances conspire to place
more and more individuals in this unintegrated position,
so will the suicide rate rise.
It should be noticed, incidentally, that Durkheim,
in speaking of social integration, is talking about
a balance between individual freedom and social attachment.
The integrated state is not a state of rigid collectivism.
Indeed, that state is characterised by excessive regulation
and high suicide rates. The integrated state is one
in which multiple individual needs and aspirations
can be realised through a variety of voluntary social
and interpersonal attachments. Research has shown,
for example, that mental and emotional support within
a family strongly reduces depression and suicidal behaviour
(Bjarnason, 1994:204).
Against that theoretical background, let us look very
briefly at just one example of a social correlate of
suicide before examining suicide rates and unemployment
statistics.
Suicide and Marriage
The available statistics from those societies that
compile them, show that suicide is considerably higher
among those who are not married than among those who
are married (Ruzicka and Choi, 1993:108). This is certainly
true of Australia. For the sake of brevity, Table
4 sets out the age-standardised ratios of suicides
according to marital status, only for the years 1986-90;
but the pattern for these years is similar to that
for earlier years.
The number 100 stands for the average level of suicide
in Australia as a whole. A ratio higher than 100 indicates
an above-average suicide mortality, and one less than
100 a below-average suicide mortality.
The figures are revealing. They show, for example,
that divorced men had a suicide rate twice that of
the general population and three times that of married
men. The female pattern is similar, except that divorce
seems to be somewhat more devastating for women, and
widower status more devastating for men. We can conjecture
why this might be so.
However, two explanations have been suggested for
the differences revealed here. One is that those who
divorce are a group selected in terms of mental health
status (Ruzicka and Choi, 1993:109-110). That is, they
might include a preponderance of those mentally or
emotionally unfitted for marriage and whose marriages
are ill-starred from the start. The other explanation
is essentially Durkheimian. Marriage, it seems for
most, is good for your health. Marriage is a form
of social integration which attaches people to an important
social institution and common sentiments, and carries,
too, all sorts of interpersonal satisfactions and fulfilments
that serve our social and emotional needs in a health-sustaining
way.
Youth Unemployment and Youth Suicide
If we are to hypothesise a causal link between youth
unemployment and youth suicide, in order to verify
the hypothesis we should expect to find a significant
statistical correlation between the two phenomena;
we should be able plausibly to suggest that the fact
of unemployment generates a life-taking motive under
circumstances that can be specified; we should specify
those circumstances; and we should then demonstrate
that they are present where the statistical correlation
between suicide and unemployment is strong.
Granted that individuals who are poorly integrated
in a social and interpersonal sense are more likely
to suicide, is employment an important condition of
the social integration of young men? There is a fair
body of evidence showing the positive effects of employment
on the well-being of those of working age. Research
has shown that 'Earned income enhances self-esteem
and a sense of mastery, which, in turn, increases overall
well-being' (Ishii-Kuntz:497). The magnitude of this
effect increases with the extent to which the persons
concerned are identified with, and identify their own
self-esteem in terms of, bread-winning roles and responsibilities.
I take it that it is still the case that male identity
continues to be more deeply attached to bread-winning
capacity and roles than female identity, despite the
great changes for women over recent years. If that
is generally true, we would expect a stronger response
to unemployment, with its consequence of reduced self-esteem
and well-being among young males, than among young
females. There would therefore be a stronger association
between unemployment and suicide for young males than
for young females. This might diminish over time as
young females identify themselves more strongly with
non-maternal and non-domestic careers. Nevertheless,
it is an important fact that maternity and domesticity
remain either central, or alternative, sources of social
identity and self-esteem for the great majority of
women in a way that simply cannot be true for young
men.
Also, we have seen that the married state protects
against suicide and we must assume that the urge to
marry is still strong amongst most men and women because
80 per cent of them continue to get married.
However, marriage is effectively ruled out for unemployed
young males in their early twenties, but not for unemployed
females of the same age. Not so long ago this was
the age at which most men and women got engaged and
married. Since then, age at marriage has steadily
risen. De facto relationships are common, but they
are about ten times more likely to break up than marriages.
What I'm suggesting is that unemployment for young
men represents a serious failure of social integration
in itself. But it also exacerbates the further failure
of integration represented by non-marriage or an unstable
substitute for marriage. It is likely that a high
proportion of males in the 20-24 age group would no
longer live with their parents and siblings (Morrell
et al., 1993:755) and would therefore be deprived of
their emotional and other supports in a stressful situation,
thus reinforcing the isolation and social detachment
characteristic of unemployment and the socially unintegrated
state.
A corollary of what I am saying is that if employment
is so important for male identity and well-being, this
should be just as true of middle aged men as of young
men. We would therefore expect rates of suicide amongst
middle-aged men to be as sensitive to their unemployment
rates as amongst young men, subject to possible modifications
attributable to higher marriage rates among middle-aged
men. Figure 1 shows very high rates of suicide among
older men during the 1930s depression when unemployment
was much higher among older men than among young men.
That situation was completely reversed, however,
from 1980 on.
We have already noted the quite striking differences
between male and female suicide rates in general.
There is no significant or consistent correlation between
female unemployment and female suicide rates. The
remarkable thing about female suicide rates is their
steadiness, which, apart from a blip in the 1960s usually
attributed to a sedative suicide epidemic, has remained
around the 5 per 100,000 mark for over 80 years, and
which has not been responsive to unemployment rates.
But the story is quite different for males. Morrell
and others, using Australian records from 1907 to 1990,
investigated trends in suicide stratified by age and
gender, with an emphasis on suicide by young men,
and they compared these trends with unemployment rates.
The results are summarised in Figure 2.
- Male suicide rates have fluctuated sharply over this
83-year period. The rates went down during two world
wars---that is, in periods when national purpose and
cohesiveness were strongest and unemployment very low.
The highest rates of male suicide occurred during
the Great Depression in the early 1930s when unemployment
was at its worst in this century. In 1912 to 1915
and 1920-21 there were suicide peaks coinciding with
peaks of unemployment.
Youth Unemployment
The unemployment rates for young men and women as
at August 1993 were as shown in Table 5.
Suicide rates among 20-24 year old males reached their
highest point in this century in 1990, with approximately
36.1 deaths per 100,000 in this age group. This is
the most suicidal group in the country, with the exception
of men over 75.
As the figures in Table 5 show, unemployment amongst
15-19 year-old males is about one-third higher than
for 20-24 year-old males; yet their suicide rate is
lower. Why might this be so? I have already suggested
a possible answer. More 15-19 year old males are
still living with their families and thus have the
emotional and integrative support which research has
shown to be so important. Furthermore, it is likely,
for some of the reasons I have already given, that
pressures for financial independence, bread-winning
capability, and the establishment of social identity
hinging on employment, a career and marriage, are not
yet as insistent for 15-19 year olds as for 20-24 year
olds, for whom the expectations to take up adult responsibilities
and careers are very powerful indeed. Young men in
the 20-24 age group exhibit the closest association
between unemployment and suicide. The statistical correlation
is high, as shown in Figure 3.
Morrell and his colleagues comment on this as follows:
'If 20-24 male unemployment rates are taken as a ratio
of the overall unemployment rate, and 20-24 male suicide
rates as a proportion of the male age standardised
suicide rate, the R2 value increases to 80%' (Morrell,
1993:753). This is illustrated in Figure 4.
It is also worth noting that the median duration of
unemployment is longer for males in the 20-24 age group
than in the 15-19 year group, as shown in Figure 5,
prepared for me by Mr John Logan.
There is little doubt that there is a strong association
between suicide and unemployment rates for 15-24 year
old males in this country, and a particularly strong
one for the 20-24 year old group. This is consistent
with a similar, but in most cases less strong, association
in other OECD countries (Morrell, 1993:754). The crucial
question is this: Are we entitled to conclude that
high unemployment rates for young men will cause high
suicide rates among them?
Allowing that it is virtually impossible to prove
for any particular suicide what the determining conditions
were, at the aggregate level we are dealing with here,
I believe we are entitled to conclude that the evidence
presented strongly 'supports the hypothesis that unemployment
is significant as a predisposing factor for increasing
the risk of suicide, especially in males' (Morrell
et al., 1993:755), and especially in the 20-24 age
group.
And, above all, we have strong grounds for criticising
public policies which are, predictably but avoidably,
exposing thousands of young men to the kinds of anguish,
idleness and despair that arise from unemployment and
which, for too many of them, may have suicide as one
of its consummations.
Bob Day referred at this conference to the need to
liberate employers and employees from the 'slavery'
of the award system. That system is especially pernicious
to the extent that it condemns young men to idleness
and isolation. That is a particularly deadly form
of servitude.
References:
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) 1994, Australian
Social Trends, Catalogue No. 4102.0, ABS, Canberra.
Bjarnason, Thoroddur 1994, 'The Influence of Social
Support, Suggestion and Depression on Suicidal Behaviour
Among Icelandic Youth', Acta Sociologica, Vol.
37: 196-206.
Durkheim, E. 1897, Le Suicide: etude de sociologie.
English translation John A. Spauld and George Simpson
(1951), Suicide: A Study in Sociology, Glencoe,
The Free Press.
Ishii-Kuntz, Masako 1994, 'Work and Family Life: Findings
From International Research and Suggestions for Future
Study', Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 15 No.
3, September: 490-506.
Morrell, Stephen, Richard Taylor, Susan Quine and Charles
Kerr 1993, 'Suicide and Unemployment in Australia 1907-1990',
Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 36 No. 6:
749-756. (Figures 1-4 in the text reprinted from this
article with kind permission from Elsevier Science
Ltd., The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington OX5
lGB, UK).
Ruzicka, L.T. and C.Y. Choi 1993, 'Suicide Mortality
in Australia, 197-1991', Journal of the Australian
Population Association, Vol. 10 No. 2: 101-117.
Table 1
Suicide death rates(a) by age and sex
|
|
|
| 15-24
|
| 25-34
|
| 35-44
|
| 45-54
|
| 55-64
|
| 65-74
|
| 75+
|
| Total
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
| | Males
| 1975
|
| 14.8
|
| 18.3
|
| 23.1
|
| 27.0
|
| 23.1
|
| 30.2
|
| 30.4
|
| 20.9
| |
| 1980
|
| 18.0
|
| 22.7
|
| 22.6
|
| 23.9
|
| 23.9
|
| 24.3
|
| 30.6
|
| 27.5
| |
| 1985
|
| 21.4
|
| 26.4
|
| 22.7
|
| 23.2
|
| 24.9
|
| 26.9
|
| 35.7
|
| 24.3
| |
| 1990
|
| 26.5
|
| 29.5
|
| 25.8
|
| 24.3
|
| 23.2
|
| 26.2
|
| 35.1
|
| 26.7
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Females
| 1975
|
| 4.6
|
| 7.2
|
| 10.8
|
| 13.9
|
| 13.4
|
| 10.0
|
| 7.0
|
| 9.2
| |
| 1980
|
| 4.5
|
| 6.7
|
| 8.6
|
| 11.7
|
| 10.2
|
| 9.0
|
| 6.7
|
| 8.0
| |
| 1985
|
| 4.8
|
| 6.0
|
| 7.0
|
| 9.7
|
| 8.8
|
| 7.9
|
| 7.4
|
| 7.0
| |
| 1990
|
| 4.9
|
| 7.1
|
| 6.9
|
| 7.3
|
| 8.1
|
| 7.7
|
| 8.4
|
| 6.9
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Persons
| 1975
|
| 9.8
|
| 12.9
|
| 17.1
|
| 20.6
|
| 18.1
|
| 19.3
|
| 15.3
|
| 15.2
| |
| 1980
|
| 11.4
|
| 14.9
|
| 16.0
|
| 18.0
|
| 17.0
|
| 16.1
|
| 15.4
|
| 15.1
| |
| 1985
|
| 13.3
|
| 16.3
|
| 15.0
|
| 16.6
|
| 16.8
|
| 16.6
|
| 17.7
|
| 15.6
| |
| 1990
|
| 15.9
|
| 18.4
|
| 16.5
|
| 16.0
|
| 15.7
|
| 16.2
|
| 18.3
|
| 16.7
|
(a) Rates per 100,000 in the same age and sex group. Source:
ABS, Social Trends, Cat. 4102.0, 1994.
Table 2
Suicide rate(a), 15-24 year olds
| Country
|
| Year
|
| Males
|
| Females
|
| Persons
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Iceland
|
| 1991
|
| 61.0
|
| 4.9
|
| 33.3
| | Finland
|
| 1991
|
| 42.2
|
| 7.3
|
| 25.1
| | New Zealand
|
| 1989
|
| 37.9
|
| 7.0
|
| 22.6
| | Australia
|
| 1991
|
| 26.7
|
| 6.4
|
| 16.7
| | Switzerland
|
| 1991
|
| 26.0
|
| 6.2
|
| 16.2
| | Canada
|
| 1990
|
| 24.6
|
| 5.0
|
| 15.0
| | Norway
|
| 1990
|
| 22.1
|
| 6.3
|
| 14.4
| | Sweden
|
| 1989
|
| 19.8
|
| 8.3
|
| 14.2
| | USA
|
| 1989
|
| 22.2
|
| 4.2
|
| 13.3
| | Hungary
|
| 1991
|
| 19.6
|
| 5.3
|
| 12.6
| | Singapore
|
| 1990
|
| 13.3
|
| 7.7
|
| 10.6
| | Germany
|
| 1990
|
| 14.4
|
| 4.3
|
| 9.5
| | Poland
|
| 1991
|
| 15.8
|
| 2.4
|
| 9.3
| | Ireland
|
| 1990
|
| 14.2
|
| 4.1
|
| 9.3
| | France
|
| 1990
|
| 14.1
|
| 4.4
|
| 9.3
| | Denmark
|
| 1991
|
| 12.0
|
| 3.6
|
| 7.9
| | UK
|
| 1991
|
| 11.5
|
| 2.3
|
| 7.0
| | Japan
|
| 1991
|
| 9.1
|
| 4.7
|
| 7.0
| | Netherlands
|
| 1990
|
| 8.2
|
| 3.6
|
| 5.9
| | Spain
|
| 1989
|
| 8.4
|
| 1.9
|
| 5.2
| | Israel
|
| 1989
|
| 6.2
|
| 3.6
|
| 4.9
| | Portugal
|
| 1989
|
| 6.9
|
| 2.1
|
| 4.6
| | Italy
|
| 1989
|
| 5.1
|
| 1.6
|
| 3.4
| | Greece
|
| 1990
|
| 5.2
|
| 1.1
|
| 3.2
|
(a) Rates per 100,000 in the same age and sex group.
Source: World Health Organisation (1992) World
Health Statistics Annual
Table 3
Urban/rural suicide rates(a), 1987-91
|
|
| 15-24
|
| All
|
| 15-24
|
| All
| | Sex
|
| years
|
| ages
|
| years
|
| ages
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
|
| rate
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Male
|
| 25.0
|
| 21.3
|
| 36.6
|
| 22.6
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Female
|
| 5.1
|
| 6.0
|
| 5.0
|
| 4.0
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Total
|
| 15.2
|
| 13.6
|
| 21.6
|
| 13.5
|
(a) Rates per 100,000 in the same age and sex group.
Source: ABS, Social Trends, Cat. 4102.0, 1994.
Table 4
Suicide and Marital Status
Age-standardised ratios (where 100=average level
of suicide)
| Marital Status
|
| Male Ratio
|
| Female Ratio
| |
|
|
|
|
| | Currently married
|
| 68.7
|
| 67.3
| |
|
|
|
|
| | Never married
|
| 128.6
|
| 138.2
| |
|
|
|
|
| | Widowed
|
| 201.2
|
| 132.1
| |
|
|
|
|
| | Divorced
|
| 206.4
|
| 243.7
|
(Adapted from Ruzicka, 1993:109)
|
