TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2001//
TI  - The Age Structure of Male Suicide Rates: Measurement and Analysis of 20 Developed Countries, 1955-1994
JO  - Social science research
A1  - Cutright, Phillips
A1  - Fernquist, Robert M.
SP  - 627
EP  - 640
VL  - 30
IS  - 4
N2  - 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.<p /> 
LA  - en
SN  - 0049-089X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ssre.2001.0717
ID  - ref1
ER  -