Is Cutthroat Capitalism Pushing a Growing Number of Baby Boomers to Suicide? [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/cutthroat-capitalism-pushing-growing-number-baby-boomers-suicide



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We really don't know why humans take their own lives. But we can get a sense of what events correlate with increasing and decreasing suicide rates. Ileana Arias, CDC deputy director, provides some suggestions:

“It is the baby boomer group where we see the highest rates of suicide. There may be something about that group, and how they think about life issues and their life choices that may make a difference....The increase does coincide with a decrease in financial standing for a lot of families over the same time period."

Dr. Arias is referring to research that shows a correlation between the rise of suicide rates and economic hard times. For example a 2001 study by sociologist Augustine J. Kposowa found:

"After three years of followup, unemployed men were a little over twice as likely to commit suicide as their employed counterparts. Among men, the lower the socio-economic status, the higher the suicide risk. Among women, in each year of followup, the unemployed had a much higher suicide risk than the employed. After nine years of followup, unemployed women were over three times more likely to kill themselves than their employed counterparts."