Citation

Cutright P, Fernquist RM. Soc. Sci. Res. 2001; 30(4): 627-640.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1006/ssre.2001.0717

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Publication of 19th-century age- and gender-specific suicide rates (Morselli, 1882, Table XXIX) and similar 20th-century suicide rates (World Health Organization 1956, Table 4) invited comparative study of the age structures of suicide, but Girard's 1993 article was the first detailed effort to construct a measure of age structure that would allow systematic comparative analysis of cross-national data. We replaced Girard's qualitative typology with a quantitative measure of age structures. We then tested the theory that economic development is a key to understanding the age structure of suicide. We found no difference between these structures around 1850 and those in industrialized countries more than a century later. Differences between the male age structure of suicide in the United States and the other 19 developed countries in the 1955-1994 period were measured. We also found that change in the age structure in each country between 1955-1964 and 1985-1994 was statistically significant in 19 of the 20 countries. Over this period the share of total suicides to men ages 15-44 increased in nearly all countries, while the share to men 45-74 declined. Regression analysis using measures of societal integration, the culture of suicide, and the 1955-1964 suicide rate successfully predicted the 1985-1994 age structure in 18 of 20 countries.