The Age Structure of Male Suicide Rates: Measurement and Analysis of 20 Developed Countries, 1955–1994

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.