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Unemployment Can Triple Risk Of Suicide

July 25, 2003

Unemployment carries up to three times the risk of suicide, suggests research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The findings held true even after taking account of risk factors, such as household income, education, and marital status.

The researchers based their findings on the 1991 New Zealand census, involving over 2 million adults, suicides among whom were tracked in the three years after the census was taken.

Unemployed 25 to 44 year old men and women, and 45 to 64 year old men were two to three times as likely to commit suicide as their employed peers. Not being married, and for 18 to 24 year old men, fewer qualifications and lower household income also increased the risk of suicide.

But there were few suicides among women of this age group. And suicide risk was still higher among the unemployed, compared with those in employment, irrespective of socioeconomic factors.

Although the authors took account of the rates of mental illness in the population, the relative risk of mental illness among the unemployed and the attendant risk of suicide, mental illness could be a factor in up to half this increased risk, they say.

However, the possibility that mental illness explains the association between unemployment and suicide is weakened by the fact that most people forced to leave work because of ill health would have been classified as non-active, rather than unemployed, in addition to which unemployment rates in New Zealand were high in 1991.

The proportion of suicides attributable to unemployment among adults between 24 and 64 was comparatively small at 6%, note the authors, added to which mental illness is a factor in around half of all suicides. Nevertheless, the effects of unemployment should not be discounted solely on this basis, they say.

And they suggest that the unemployment rate in a society might be an indicator of the lack of social cohesion, which in turn is associated with higher numbers of suicides.

British Medical Journal (BMJ)