9 ms·

A silent epidemic of male suicide (2011)

112 points by MollyR 10y ago

ThatGeoGuy 10y ago
Note for those who didn't notice: although this appears to be the first time this has been posted to Hacker News, it was from 2011. dang: Add (2011) to the title?
cloudjacker 10y ago
"These explanations suggest that when compared with suicidal women, men who reach the point of suicidal action are: [More X, More Y, More Z].... Despite some limited theoretical and empirical support, we currently lack strong evidence to support these explanations." Welp there goes the whole thread guys Any follow up study?
- roghummal 10y ago
  X, Y, Z, A, B, C: • hopeless. • clearly resolved to die. • likely to be intoxicated and thus more disinhibited. • willing to carry out actions that might leave them injured or disfigured. • unconcerned with consequences because of a high risk-taking orientation. • likely to have a greater capacity to enact lethal self-injury.
cup 10y ago
Is it silent? The statistics and data aggregation seem pretty robust. Most governments publish data reinforcing that suicide is a huge risk factor for men. I don't think It's a silent epidemic as much as It's just not an important epidemic. Society doesn't necessarily rank the problem of male suicide high enough to fix or fund.
- dalke 10y ago
  "Silent" here means in part "a lack of public awareness, a paucity of explanatory research, and the reluctance of men to seek help for suicide-related concerns". The assertion is that the low ranking you mention is made through general societal ignorance. Compare, for example, to the high number of deaths caused by driving. Those risks are well known, taught in schools, and discussed often. This is a much more informed ranking.
- yomly 10y ago
  >It's just not an important epidemic. "Aye,there's the rub..." Men are more likely to succumb to alcoholism[0] Men are more likely to succumb to gambling problems[1] An estimated 84% of homeless are male in the UK[2] Alcoholism and gambling are some choice indicators of inequality that Tony Judt liked to reference in Ill Fares the Land[3]. The gender disparity is well documented at the top (e.g. Gender diversity for C-level) but this is the 1% of the 1%. I'm not denying that the lack of diversity is alarming but these men are the men that bested many other men. However the fact that there is a lack of diversity on both sides of the spectrum seems to be an inconvenient truth that most prefer to avoid. [0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533281 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533281 [1]https://www.responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/2014/gender-gap-highlighted-in-new-gambling-study https://www.responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/newsroom/media-re... [2]https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gender-divide-feminism https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-ge... [3]https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718191412/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718191412/
  - dreta 10y ago
    don’t forget the lack of help for male domestic abuse victims
- sien 10y ago
  It might also be because people are wary of talking about suicide because there is some evidence that making people think about it more may make it occur more. Also, it might be because society sort of accepts that old men are allowed to kill themselves. The highest suicide rate is for 75+ year old men. http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/... I don't agree with either of these things, I'm just putting them forward as to why people suicide is less prominent in public health discussions.
- cuckcuckspruce 10y ago
  It's bound up in the concept of male disposability. As a society we're arguing about whether or not to let women in the military (we should), whether they should have the same standards are men (they should), whether they should be allowed to serve in combat roles if they meet that standard (they should), and whether we should value their service equally (we should). However, any time anybody raises the banner to go to war we don't stop to think about the thousands of men, ripped apart from the life they know, ripped apart from their families, sent off as fresh meat to the grinder, sent off into a hailstorm of bullets, mortars, rockets, missiles, and bombs to kill or be killed, maim or be killed. Nobody but their immediate family cares whether or not the come home, and nobody but their family cares what they went through while they were there. Society is perfectly fine with throwing away men, shaming them into making the ultimate sacrifice for their county. Why would they care if a few thousand off themselves every year?
wyldfire 10y ago
Is the incidence increasing over time? That wasn't clear from what I read. It says the incidence is high but doesn't include data about how it changes over time.
nyolfen 10y ago
>Although men die by suicide at a higher rate, women have a higher rate of attempting suicide.16 This pattern is evident among youth and persists over the lifespan. Why is this? I've read before that modes of suicide tend to be gendered -- ie, gunshots to the head for men and overdoses for women. Is this the entire story? Are women more likely, consciously or unconsciously, to be social signaling for support than men when they attempt suicide? I lost my brother to suicide three years ago. I began attending counseling this year after a protracted period of personal turmoil in its aftermath, and it's a topic I spend a lot of thought on. When I was younger and less psychologically moored I thought of suicide as the ultimate lever I could wield over my own fate. Not so much these days, though.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Honestly, I have a suspicion that people go for the methods available to them - gun ownership is gendered in the first place.
  - Joeboy 10y ago
    I believe (but do not have a citation) the gender split also occurs here in the UK, where basically nobody has guns.
    - snerbles 10y ago
      "The UK suicide rate was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 population in 2014. The male suicide rate was more than 3 times higher than the female rate, with 16.8 male deaths per 100,000 compared with 5.2 female deaths" http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2014registrations http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea... EDIT - Further down in the article, the most common methods noted in the UK are hanging and poison.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        What's the suicide attempt rate, though? The argument is that men are more successful at going through with suicide than women, due to chosen methods.
holdenc 10y ago
It would be interesting to see incidences distributed over different types of divorce outcomes.
ransom1538 10y ago
There is a decent documentary that watches a few teams respond to "Gun Violence" (1). It was basically a tour of people shooting themselves or their family. A bizarre left turn into mental health questions and responsibilities. It is clear that, of ~33k gun deaths (2) - most are suicides. Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3) - but it is all i see on the news :( 1) http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/requiem-for-the-dead-american-spring-2014 http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/requiem-for-the-dead-americ... 2) "11,208 homicides (3.5 per 100,000); 21,175 suicides; 505 deaths due to accidental/negligent discharge of a firearm; and 2818 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta... 3) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/fbi-us-homicide-rate-51-year-low http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/fbi-us-homicide-rat...
- vacri 10y ago
  > Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3) Homicide accounting for a third of gun-related deaths in the US, and a homicide rate four times higher than other western democracies... is "almost non-existent"!?
  - sevenless 10y ago
    It is true that most Americans are very unlikely to be murdered. This homicide rate varies widely over age, sex and race, and (as per CDC) homicide is not a leading cause of death for most demographics. Young black males are, unfortunately, the exception.
    - vacri 10y ago
      > homicide is not a leading cause of death for most demographics. That's a downplaying, dismissive phrase. Most western democracies have a homicide rate of 0.5-1.5/100k population/year. The US is an outlier amongst this group at ~4.8/100k/y. But even in Honduras, with the runaway worst homicide rate in the world at around 85/100k/year, an eye-gogglingly high rate, homicide is not a 'leading cause of death for most demographics'.
slr555 10y ago
There are several sources for comparable US data. Examining page 6 of the PDF below demonstrates that the suicide rates for middle aged to elderly Caucasian males in the US is higher in 2014 by a factor of ~3 or in cases more compared to women and other ethnicities. Despite the prevalence of suicide in this group the issue is seldom covered by the media or addressed in public policy debates. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014....
jomamaxx 10y ago
Men are far more likely to die from all sorts of things, esp. occupational hazards. Nobody cares.
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  There are far more pressing injustices to prosecute, like the male/female "wage gap" [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-into-the-gender-pay-gap-myth/#295431f14766 http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...
  - erroneousfunk 10y ago
    Right, men tend to take on jobs that are physically demanding, or may have more dangerous aspects at higher rates. The reasons are complex. Pressure to support a family or make more money despite potential harm to themselves, unwillingness to turn down difficult assignments to avoid seeming weak, valuing personal strength and "toughness," less dangerous jobs are unavailable for their experience and/or location and they have to take whatever's available (again, social pressure means they "have" to work in the first place, no matter what the job is). Social stigma towards blue collar workers and manual laborers, and getting trapped in these jobs due to an inability to find safer employment while doing them. Women tend to take on jobs that pay less, have fewer responsibilities, or they take more time away from the workforce. The reasons are complex. Pressure to devote more time and energy towards family and childcare directly, and conversely, less pressure to support the family financially -- sometimes even before children enter the picture. Inability to get childcare support from spouse/family/outside sources, not wanting to seem too "tough" or "aggressive," avoiding social stigma towards working mothers, pulling out of the workforce to avoid restrictive maternity leave policies, difficulties re-entering the workforce afterwards. Lots of people face lots of problems.
Animats 10y ago
Male suicides are up in the US, too. The US has about 40,000 suicides a year. "Suicide is concentrated among those whom our society values least."[1]. The big jump is among white, middle-aged men and women. "The states with the highest suicide rates tend to be clustered in the South and the Mountain West... This suicide belt is also defined by what psychologists have dubbed a “culture of honor.” ... That means higher murder rates but even more-exaggerated suicide rates, a fact he attributes to millennia of old masculine codes meeting a disappearance of blue-collar jobs unlikely to reverse itself. Give me honor, or give me death was a safer personal motto when honor could still be readily found." - Newsweek Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s? [1] http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-epidemic-and-what-we-can-do-help-237434.html http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-ep...
- seizethecheese 10y ago
  > Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s? Even if software eats software development, today's "brogrammers" will still be in good shape, having a working knowledge of technology. The people who are currently in good shape who are more at risk, in my opinion, are the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day. Just like they did 20 years ago? The trend doesn't seem to be that those jobs are going anywhere.
    - seizethecheese 10y ago
      If you depend on current trends for you thinking, you'll never predict the future.
      - sevenless 10y ago
        Sorry to be a smartass, but isn't this post self-refuting?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
booleandilemma 10y ago
The problem is at least partly societal. A large portion of life is made up of social interaction, and men and women have very different experiences of this. People are generally nicer to women. Men are treated as being less important than women (think: women and children first). With this in mind, it's not surprising men are more likely to kill themselves.
- nilved 10y ago
  > People are generally nicer to women. This sentence is a lot more contentious than you let on.
  - cloakandswagger 10y ago
    I can only offer anecdotal evidence (I don't know how you'd even begin to measure this), but it's absolutely true that your average person is more likely to jump to the defense of a woman, or be more appalled at violence or injustice perpetrated against a woman. Violence against men seems to be much easier for society to stomach, probably due to frequency and the perception that a man is stronger/tougher and should be able to protect himself.
    - zpharer 10y ago
      To hear it from my female friends, they have to put up with a lot of bullshit that men don't have to deal with.
- narag 10y ago
  Males bear the burden of a lot of aggresivity hormones. That and the fact males are stronger would explain men commit more violent crimes, hurt women more often than the other way around and also suicide more often. I don't think men are treated as less important. The "women and children first" is more of a societal compensation for the fact that men can go first because we're, on average, stronger and more aggresive.
  - 10y ago
adamnemecek 10y ago
I think that to a large extent this has something to do with the (mostly terrible) educational system just about everywhere in the world. Your education kind of sets a course for the rest your life and it's a travesty that very productive years are basically squandered because the system is setup for maybe 19th century.
wingless 10y ago
Men are disposable. This idea is wired inside the deepest, most primal part our brains. There are a few possible solutions to this. We could evolve ourselves and change our brains. We could tip the gender population ratio in favor of women, so that men would be more sought after. The easiest way to achieve the latter is by simply giving parents the power to choose their kid's gender. Assuming parents are rational agents, they will choose the most valuable gender for their kid, which will bring the genders into an equilibrium.
- sevenless 10y ago
  You're in luck - India and China have conducted a very large experiment on this already, though not a very ethical one. Unfortunately, it seems parents are not rational agents, and sexist societies will continue to choose male children even when women are scarce, with social turmoil as a consequence. If you really want to fix humanity, I'd advise getting rid of men. Labs can make sperm from stem cells, so there's really no need for us anymore.
  - sridca 10y ago
    > sexist societies will continue to choose male children even when women are scarce The preference for a male child over a female child is not limited to what you dub to be 'sexist societies'[1] (thus inadvertently revealing your selective antagonism towards the said societies--India and China). It is actually global phenomenon, the USA included: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_selection#Preference_for_sex_of_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_selection#Preference_for_s... > If you really want to fix humanity, I'd advise getting rid of men. This strange advice of yours depends on the fervent belief--a sexist one, I might add--that women are incapable of the wiles of humanity. [1] It would be far more reasonable to suggest instead that this preference is but the other (evolutionary) side of men being the more expendable sex (i.e., the more expendable they are, the more of them need to be birthed to account for their greater number of deaths)
    - sevenless 10y ago
      > This strange advice of yours depends on the fervent belief--a sexist one, I might add--that women are incapable of the wiles of humanity. Are facts sexist? Men tend to be much more violent than women. Nearly all rapes and homicides are committed by men, men are much more accident-prone, and men make up nearly all the fighters in wars. With advances in biological technology, humanity may no longer need men to survive. If we were to re-engineer humanity with harm reduction as a priority - and that is one big 'if', but it's your premise, not mine - there is a case for phasing out males.
pessimizer 10y ago
I wonder why an analysis of comparative rates of male/female self-murder seems to ignore that men murder others (in the U.S.) at around 5 or 6 times the rate of women. The differences seem comparable and very related. I see postulation that men have unique problems, but not any consideration of the fact that men have shown a greater urge to kill in general. I may have just missed it.
- ank_the_elder 10y ago
  Is that the actual murder rate or the conviction rate? Remember that women are less likely to be convicted than men are.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092 I think the way you're using "actual murder rate" here is by definition an unknowable number. Do you have the actual comparable likelihood of the conviction of women and men with the same evidence? Is there actually any real question that men kill far more than women do?
fatdog 10y ago
So the reason men kill themselves is "because, men?" I get that is sufficient for the sort of people for whom, "because, women," or "because, men," is explanatory, but maybe something social changed in the last 40 years? When you control for hard drugs like the mari-huana, heavy metal music, D&D, violent video games, rap music, marylin manson, the fast and the furious sequels, and toxic masculinity, surely there is something that must shake out.
throwaway249714 10y ago
Content advisory: I talk about my experiences with suicide below. If you're thinking about suicide, please get help by talking to a friend or making use of the many suicide prevention resources out there. I'm male and I almost committed suicide earlier this year. (I still have suicidal thoughts, but I'm doing mostly better now, and I'm getting plenty of professional help.) This is anecdotal speculation, but I wonder if another contributor to the gender discrepancy is that men are more likely to deal with compulsions and other "demons", and thus are more likely to want to kill themselves out of shame. That's sort of a vague and hard-to-measure claim, but I think it's pretty well-established that testosterone increases risk-taking behavior, and I imagine that includes addictions/compulsions as well. In my case, I am/was a sex addict (or sexual addict) and I had been fighting for years with compulsions that caused me to mistreat women, even friends who I deeply cared about. I did feel deep shame and emotional self-hate, but my decision to commit suicide didn't happen due to overwhelming emotion, it was a (mostly) calm and solid decision that my situation was hopeless and that my death would make the world a better place. When I was making plans, my main focus was to make sure that I would actually die, and I had plenty of time to work through the details. I ended up changing my mind at the last minute, but I just as easily could have gone through with it. I don't really know how common my type of situation is, but it's at least one example of a reason for suicide that I believe affects men much more than women. That said, I believe I've heard that suicide is most commonly caused by depression rather than shame or other factors, but I don't know how reliable those findings are. It seems like something that's potentially hard to measure. At the very least, it would be interesting to try to explore how the motivation for suicide varies across genders.
throwaway9123 10y ago
I am a guy. I narrowly avoided suicide around 18. I should first note that I'm doing much better these days. If there is anything scarier than attempting suicide, it would be the thought of surviving it. Permanent disfigurement, crippling, or chronic pain would only make life all the worse - and a second attempt would be made all the harder by well meaning family, police, and doctors. One thinks to be thorough, or to not try at all. Scarier than keeping quiet about your demons, is the thought of being forced to confront them. You don't want to talk and dwell on such a depressing subject, when depression is the very thing you're trying to run from. Outward silence mirrors a desperate attempt to achieve inner silence. Manly ideals such as the ability to shoulder burden, and self reliance, can worsen the problem. Why share such deeply personal problems, if you think others can't help you with them? After all, if even you yourself can't lick the problem - you who surely best knows yourself - what chance do others have? You'll only depress others. You'll only depress yourself further. . I survived the peak of my first depression thanks to a fear of hell. The second, by knowing my ex still cared about me, even if she did not still care to be with me. I couldn't be that selfish. A decade later, and long walks are for exercise and a break - not an excuse to cross tall bridges. I fight the good fight: I try to exercise. To eat well. To sleeping well and fully. To socialize regularly. To enjoy the sun. To enjoy nature. To eliminate stress. I have a career. I rarely crunch. Medication would probably help. I'd still like a meaning to life. Maybe Love, again, but love is hard work - and even after all this time, is it prudent to risk a third heartbreak? I'm better now, and take care of myself better, but in doing so I've also learned a healthy amount of selfishness... . It's 7AM, and I should sleep. Back to silence. I will sleep well, and wake refreshed tomorrow. Be kind to and take care of each other, and do the same for yourselves. Make friends instead of enemies, even if that means funny hobbies instead of important politics sometimes. Smile, laugh, and try to share the joys of life. They may not always shine as brightly, but it's easier to find your way towards life if the path is at least lit.
- zpharer 10y ago
  Good luck on your journey. If you ever do find yourself on the fence about getting professional help, please try it. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
slackstation 10y ago
Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire? If you look at depression and suicidal thoughts as a disease, the death rate is gendered. Men die more from suicide yet society shows more sympathy and support for women. That makes sense since society was basically built to protect women and ensure that offspring had stable diligent parents. This leads to society enshrining the protections of women and children at the (relative) disadvantage of men.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire? Because if women start to use more lethal methods we'll see their rates of death overtake men. We care about attempted suicide, and self harm, because we want to reduce the rates of attempted suicide and of completed suicide.

112 points by MollyR 10y ago

Note for those who didn't notice: although this appears to be the first time this has been posted to Hacker News, it was from 2011. dang: Add (2011) to the title?

cloudjacker 10y ago

"These explanations suggest that when compared with suicidal women, men who reach the point of suicidal action are: [More X, More Y, More Z].... Despite some limited theoretical and empirical support, we currently lack strong evidence to support these explanations." Welp there goes the whole thread guys Any follow up study?

roghummal 10y ago
X, Y, Z, A, B, C: • hopeless. • clearly resolved to die. • likely to be intoxicated and thus more disinhibited. • willing to carry out actions that might leave them injured or disfigured. • unconcerned with consequences because of a high risk-taking orientation. • likely to have a greater capacity to enact lethal self-injury.

cup 10y ago

Is it silent? The statistics and data aggregation seem pretty robust. Most governments publish data reinforcing that suicide is a huge risk factor for men. I don't think It's a silent epidemic as much as It's just not an important epidemic. Society doesn't necessarily rank the problem of male suicide high enough to fix or fund.

dalke 10y ago
"Silent" here means in part "a lack of public awareness, a paucity of explanatory research, and the reluctance of men to seek help for suicide-related concerns". The assertion is that the low ranking you mention is made through general societal ignorance. Compare, for example, to the high number of deaths caused by driving. Those risks are well known, taught in schools, and discussed often. This is a much more informed ranking.
yomly 10y ago
>It's just not an important epidemic. "Aye,there's the rub..." Men are more likely to succumb to alcoholism[0] Men are more likely to succumb to gambling problems[1] An estimated 84% of homeless are male in the UK[2] Alcoholism and gambling are some choice indicators of inequality that Tony Judt liked to reference in Ill Fares the Land[3]. The gender disparity is well documented at the top (e.g. Gender diversity for C-level) but this is the 1% of the 1%. I'm not denying that the lack of diversity is alarming but these men are the men that bested many other men. However the fact that there is a lack of diversity on both sides of the spectrum seems to be an inconvenient truth that most prefer to avoid. [0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533281 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533281 [1]https://www.responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/2014/gender-gap-highlighted-in-new-gambling-study https://www.responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/newsroom/media-re... [2]https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gender-divide-feminism https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-ge... [3]https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718191412/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718191412/
- dreta 10y ago
  don’t forget the lack of help for male domestic abuse victims
sien 10y ago
It might also be because people are wary of talking about suicide because there is some evidence that making people think about it more may make it occur more. Also, it might be because society sort of accepts that old men are allowed to kill themselves. The highest suicide rate is for 75+ year old men. http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/... I don't agree with either of these things, I'm just putting them forward as to why people suicide is less prominent in public health discussions.
cuckcuckspruce 10y ago
It's bound up in the concept of male disposability. As a society we're arguing about whether or not to let women in the military (we should), whether they should have the same standards are men (they should), whether they should be allowed to serve in combat roles if they meet that standard (they should), and whether we should value their service equally (we should). However, any time anybody raises the banner to go to war we don't stop to think about the thousands of men, ripped apart from the life they know, ripped apart from their families, sent off as fresh meat to the grinder, sent off into a hailstorm of bullets, mortars, rockets, missiles, and bombs to kill or be killed, maim or be killed. Nobody but their immediate family cares whether or not the come home, and nobody but their family cares what they went through while they were there. Society is perfectly fine with throwing away men, shaming them into making the ultimate sacrifice for their county. Why would they care if a few thousand off themselves every year?

wyldfire 10y ago

Is the incidence increasing over time? That wasn't clear from what I read. It says the incidence is high but doesn't include data about how it changes over time.

nyolfen 10y ago

>Although men die by suicide at a higher rate, women have a higher rate of attempting suicide.16 This pattern is evident among youth and persists over the lifespan. Why is this? I've read before that modes of suicide tend to be gendered -- ie, gunshots to the head for men and overdoses for women. Is this the entire story? Are women more likely, consciously or unconsciously, to be social signaling for support than men when they attempt suicide? I lost my brother to suicide three years ago. I began attending counseling this year after a protracted period of personal turmoil in its aftermath, and it's a topic I spend a lot of thought on. When I was younger and less psychologically moored I thought of suicide as the ultimate lever I could wield over my own fate. Not so much these days, though.

vertex-four 10y ago
Honestly, I have a suspicion that people go for the methods available to them - gun ownership is gendered in the first place.
- Joeboy 10y ago
  I believe (but do not have a citation) the gender split also occurs here in the UK, where basically nobody has guns.
  - snerbles 10y ago
    "The UK suicide rate was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 population in 2014. The male suicide rate was more than 3 times higher than the female rate, with 16.8 male deaths per 100,000 compared with 5.2 female deaths" http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2014registrations http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea... EDIT - Further down in the article, the most common methods noted in the UK are hanging and poison.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      What's the suicide attempt rate, though? The argument is that men are more successful at going through with suicide than women, due to chosen methods.

holdenc 10y ago

It would be interesting to see incidences distributed over different types of divorce outcomes.

ransom1538 10y ago

There is a decent documentary that watches a few teams respond to "Gun Violence" (1). It was basically a tour of people shooting themselves or their family. A bizarre left turn into mental health questions and responsibilities. It is clear that, of ~33k gun deaths (2) - most are suicides. Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3) - but it is all i see on the news :( 1) http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/requiem-for-the-dead-american-spring-2014 http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/requiem-for-the-dead-americ... 2) "11,208 homicides (3.5 per 100,000); 21,175 suicides; 505 deaths due to accidental/negligent discharge of a firearm; and 2818 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta... 3) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/fbi-us-homicide-rate-51-year-low http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/fbi-us-homicide-rat...

vacri 10y ago
> Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3) Homicide accounting for a third of gun-related deaths in the US, and a homicide rate four times higher than other western democracies... is "almost non-existent"!?
- sevenless 10y ago
  It is true that most Americans are very unlikely to be murdered. This homicide rate varies widely over age, sex and race, and (as per CDC) homicide is not a leading cause of death for most demographics. Young black males are, unfortunately, the exception.
  - vacri 10y ago
    > homicide is not a leading cause of death for most demographics. That's a downplaying, dismissive phrase. Most western democracies have a homicide rate of 0.5-1.5/100k population/year. The US is an outlier amongst this group at ~4.8/100k/y. But even in Honduras, with the runaway worst homicide rate in the world at around 85/100k/year, an eye-gogglingly high rate, homicide is not a 'leading cause of death for most demographics'.

slr555 10y ago

There are several sources for comparable US data. Examining page 6 of the PDF below demonstrates that the suicide rates for middle aged to elderly Caucasian males in the US is higher in 2014 by a factor of ~3 or in cases more compared to women and other ethnicities. Despite the prevalence of suicide in this group the issue is seldom covered by the media or addressed in public policy debates. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014....

jomamaxx 10y ago

Men are far more likely to die from all sorts of things, esp. occupational hazards. Nobody cares.

cloakandswagger 10y ago
There are far more pressing injustices to prosecute, like the male/female "wage gap" [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-into-the-gender-pay-gap-myth/#295431f14766 http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...
- erroneousfunk 10y ago
  Right, men tend to take on jobs that are physically demanding, or may have more dangerous aspects at higher rates. The reasons are complex. Pressure to support a family or make more money despite potential harm to themselves, unwillingness to turn down difficult assignments to avoid seeming weak, valuing personal strength and "toughness," less dangerous jobs are unavailable for their experience and/or location and they have to take whatever's available (again, social pressure means they "have" to work in the first place, no matter what the job is). Social stigma towards blue collar workers and manual laborers, and getting trapped in these jobs due to an inability to find safer employment while doing them. Women tend to take on jobs that pay less, have fewer responsibilities, or they take more time away from the workforce. The reasons are complex. Pressure to devote more time and energy towards family and childcare directly, and conversely, less pressure to support the family financially -- sometimes even before children enter the picture. Inability to get childcare support from spouse/family/outside sources, not wanting to seem too "tough" or "aggressive," avoiding social stigma towards working mothers, pulling out of the workforce to avoid restrictive maternity leave policies, difficulties re-entering the workforce afterwards. Lots of people face lots of problems.

Animats 10y ago

Male suicides are up in the US, too. The US has about 40,000 suicides a year. "Suicide is concentrated among those whom our society values least."[1]. The big jump is among white, middle-aged men and women. "The states with the highest suicide rates tend to be clustered in the South and the Mountain West... This suicide belt is also defined by what psychologists have dubbed a “culture of honor.” ... That means higher murder rates but even more-exaggerated suicide rates, a fact he attributes to millennia of old masculine codes meeting a disappearance of blue-collar jobs unlikely to reverse itself. Give me honor, or give me death was a safer personal motto when honor could still be readily found." - Newsweek Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s? [1] http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-epidemic-and-what-we-can-do-help-237434.html http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-ep...

seizethecheese 10y ago
> Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s? Even if software eats software development, today's "brogrammers" will still be in good shape, having a working knowledge of technology. The people who are currently in good shape who are more at risk, in my opinion, are the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day.
- ams6110 10y ago
  the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day. Just like they did 20 years ago? The trend doesn't seem to be that those jobs are going anywhere.
  - seizethecheese 10y ago
    If you depend on current trends for you thinking, you'll never predict the future.
    - sevenless 10y ago
      Sorry to be a smartass, but isn't this post self-refuting?

deleted 10y ago

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booleandilemma 10y ago

The problem is at least partly societal. A large portion of life is made up of social interaction, and men and women have very different experiences of this. People are generally nicer to women. Men are treated as being less important than women (think: women and children first). With this in mind, it's not surprising men are more likely to kill themselves.

nilved 10y ago
> People are generally nicer to women. This sentence is a lot more contentious than you let on.
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  I can only offer anecdotal evidence (I don't know how you'd even begin to measure this), but it's absolutely true that your average person is more likely to jump to the defense of a woman, or be more appalled at violence or injustice perpetrated against a woman. Violence against men seems to be much easier for society to stomach, probably due to frequency and the perception that a man is stronger/tougher and should be able to protect himself.
  - zpharer 10y ago
    To hear it from my female friends, they have to put up with a lot of bullshit that men don't have to deal with.
narag 10y ago
Males bear the burden of a lot of aggresivity hormones. That and the fact males are stronger would explain men commit more violent crimes, hurt women more often than the other way around and also suicide more often. I don't think men are treated as less important. The "women and children first" is more of a societal compensation for the fact that men can go first because we're, on average, stronger and more aggresive.
- 10y ago

adamnemecek 10y ago

I think that to a large extent this has something to do with the (mostly terrible) educational system just about everywhere in the world. Your education kind of sets a course for the rest your life and it's a travesty that very productive years are basically squandered because the system is setup for maybe 19th century.

wingless 10y ago

Men are disposable. This idea is wired inside the deepest, most primal part our brains. There are a few possible solutions to this. We could evolve ourselves and change our brains. We could tip the gender population ratio in favor of women, so that men would be more sought after. The easiest way to achieve the latter is by simply giving parents the power to choose their kid's gender. Assuming parents are rational agents, they will choose the most valuable gender for their kid, which will bring the genders into an equilibrium.

sevenless 10y ago
You're in luck - India and China have conducted a very large experiment on this already, though not a very ethical one. Unfortunately, it seems parents are not rational agents, and sexist societies will continue to choose male children even when women are scarce, with social turmoil as a consequence. If you really want to fix humanity, I'd advise getting rid of men. Labs can make sperm from stem cells, so there's really no need for us anymore.
- sridca 10y ago
  > sexist societies will continue to choose male children even when women are scarce The preference for a male child over a female child is not limited to what you dub to be 'sexist societies'[1] (thus inadvertently revealing your selective antagonism towards the said societies--India and China). It is actually global phenomenon, the USA included: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_selection#Preference_for_sex_of_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_selection#Preference_for_s... > If you really want to fix humanity, I'd advise getting rid of men. This strange advice of yours depends on the fervent belief--a sexist one, I might add--that women are incapable of the wiles of humanity. [1] It would be far more reasonable to suggest instead that this preference is but the other (evolutionary) side of men being the more expendable sex (i.e., the more expendable they are, the more of them need to be birthed to account for their greater number of deaths)
  - sevenless 10y ago
    > This strange advice of yours depends on the fervent belief--a sexist one, I might add--that women are incapable of the wiles of humanity. Are facts sexist? Men tend to be much more violent than women. Nearly all rapes and homicides are committed by men, men are much more accident-prone, and men make up nearly all the fighters in wars. With advances in biological technology, humanity may no longer need men to survive. If we were to re-engineer humanity with harm reduction as a priority - and that is one big 'if', but it's your premise, not mine - there is a case for phasing out males.

pessimizer 10y ago

I wonder why an analysis of comparative rates of male/female self-murder seems to ignore that men murder others (in the U.S.) at around 5 or 6 times the rate of women. The differences seem comparable and very related. I see postulation that men have unique problems, but not any consideration of the fact that men have shown a greater urge to kill in general. I may have just missed it.

ank_the_elder 10y ago
Is that the actual murder rate or the conviction rate? Remember that women are less likely to be convicted than men are.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092 I think the way you're using "actual murder rate" here is by definition an unknowable number. Do you have the actual comparable likelihood of the conviction of women and men with the same evidence? Is there actually any real question that men kill far more than women do?

fatdog 10y ago

So the reason men kill themselves is "because, men?" I get that is sufficient for the sort of people for whom, "because, women," or "because, men," is explanatory, but maybe something social changed in the last 40 years? When you control for hard drugs like the mari-huana, heavy metal music, D&D, violent video games, rap music, marylin manson, the fast and the furious sequels, and toxic masculinity, surely there is something that must shake out.

throwaway249714 10y ago

Content advisory: I talk about my experiences with suicide below. If you're thinking about suicide, please get help by talking to a friend or making use of the many suicide prevention resources out there. I'm male and I almost committed suicide earlier this year. (I still have suicidal thoughts, but I'm doing mostly better now, and I'm getting plenty of professional help.) This is anecdotal speculation, but I wonder if another contributor to the gender discrepancy is that men are more likely to deal with compulsions and other "demons", and thus are more likely to want to kill themselves out of shame. That's sort of a vague and hard-to-measure claim, but I think it's pretty well-established that testosterone increases risk-taking behavior, and I imagine that includes addictions/compulsions as well. In my case, I am/was a sex addict (or sexual addict) and I had been fighting for years with compulsions that caused me to mistreat women, even friends who I deeply cared about. I did feel deep shame and emotional self-hate, but my decision to commit suicide didn't happen due to overwhelming emotion, it was a (mostly) calm and solid decision that my situation was hopeless and that my death would make the world a better place. When I was making plans, my main focus was to make sure that I would actually die, and I had plenty of time to work through the details. I ended up changing my mind at the last minute, but I just as easily could have gone through with it. I don't really know how common my type of situation is, but it's at least one example of a reason for suicide that I believe affects men much more than women. That said, I believe I've heard that suicide is most commonly caused by depression rather than shame or other factors, but I don't know how reliable those findings are. It seems like something that's potentially hard to measure. At the very least, it would be interesting to try to explore how the motivation for suicide varies across genders.

throwaway9123 10y ago

I am a guy. I narrowly avoided suicide around 18. I should first note that I'm doing much better these days. If there is anything scarier than attempting suicide, it would be the thought of surviving it. Permanent disfigurement, crippling, or chronic pain would only make life all the worse - and a second attempt would be made all the harder by well meaning family, police, and doctors. One thinks to be thorough, or to not try at all. Scarier than keeping quiet about your demons, is the thought of being forced to confront them. You don't want to talk and dwell on such a depressing subject, when depression is the very thing you're trying to run from. Outward silence mirrors a desperate attempt to achieve inner silence. Manly ideals such as the ability to shoulder burden, and self reliance, can worsen the problem. Why share such deeply personal problems, if you think others can't help you with them? After all, if even you yourself can't lick the problem - you who surely best knows yourself - what chance do others have? You'll only depress others. You'll only depress yourself further. . I survived the peak of my first depression thanks to a fear of hell. The second, by knowing my ex still cared about me, even if she did not still care to be with me. I couldn't be that selfish. A decade later, and long walks are for exercise and a break - not an excuse to cross tall bridges. I fight the good fight: I try to exercise. To eat well. To sleeping well and fully. To socialize regularly. To enjoy the sun. To enjoy nature. To eliminate stress. I have a career. I rarely crunch. Medication would probably help. I'd still like a meaning to life. Maybe Love, again, but love is hard work - and even after all this time, is it prudent to risk a third heartbreak? I'm better now, and take care of myself better, but in doing so I've also learned a healthy amount of selfishness... . It's 7AM, and I should sleep. Back to silence. I will sleep well, and wake refreshed tomorrow. Be kind to and take care of each other, and do the same for yourselves. Make friends instead of enemies, even if that means funny hobbies instead of important politics sometimes. Smile, laugh, and try to share the joys of life. They may not always shine as brightly, but it's easier to find your way towards life if the path is at least lit.

zpharer 10y ago
Good luck on your journey. If you ever do find yourself on the fence about getting professional help, please try it. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

slackstation 10y ago

Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire? If you look at depression and suicidal thoughts as a disease, the death rate is gendered. Men die more from suicide yet society shows more sympathy and support for women. That makes sense since society was basically built to protect women and ensure that offspring had stable diligent parents. This leads to society enshrining the protections of women and children at the (relative) disadvantage of men.

DanBC 10y ago
> Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire? Because if women start to use more lethal methods we'll see their rates of death overtake men. We care about attempted suicide, and self harm, because we want to reduce the rates of attempted suicide and of completed suicide.