Citation

Stack S. J. Marriage Fam. 1985; 47(2): 431-447.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, National Council on Family Relations, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Previous work on the effects of domestic and religious factors on suicide usually has treated domestic and religious variables as separate entities, often not incorporating measures of both in any given study. In contrast, the present paper conceptualizes domestic and religious life as parts of a greater institutional complex centered around collectivistic values. Analysis of data from 1954 to 1978 corroborates this thesis. A Cochrane-Orcutt analysis indicates that changes in a principal component measuring domestic/religious individualism are significantly correlated with changes in the national suicide rate. This is especially true in a special subanalysis of the youth cohort, a group thought to be the one principally affected by cultural change. Other findings indicate support for the link between unemployment rates and suicide, but no support was found for the notion of either a "death dip" in presidential election years or a suggestion theory of suicide.