SOCIAL AND FAMILIAL ASPECTS OF ATTEMPTED AND COMPLETED SUICIDE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN VICTORIA

A prospective study of youth suicide was carried out to determine the causes of the dramatic increase of suicide rates in males 15 to 25 years of age. Comprehensive information was collected through coronial enquiries on all 148 cases of completed youth suicide in Victoria during a 16 month period. Similar data were obtained through in-depth interviews of 105 hospitalised and 101 non-hospitalised attempters. In this paper only social and familial aspects of youth suicide are covered. Whilst the family setting of youth who attempted or completed suicide was similar to that of the general population, a higher proportion were homeless or living alone. Contrary to common assumptions, family relationships were much closer among completed than among attempted suicides. The unemployment rates were not higher than in all young people, and few subjects named unemployment as cause, but a relatively high number of them were neither studying nor looking for work. A high proportion of those who completed suicide had prior contact with the police. In conclusion, social factors do not significantly affect suicidal behaviour in young people.     

Unemployment and psychological distress among young adults in the Nordic countries: A review of the literature

This article reviews Nordic research, published from 1995 and onwards, on the relationship between unemployment and mental health among young adults. Cross‐sectional, longitudinal and time‐series studies are included. Cross‐sectional studies show that the unemployed experience more mental health problems than the non‐unemployed. Leaving unemployment is associated with increased well‐being. Economic problems, feelings of shame and poor social support increase the likelihood of psychological distress. The longitudinal studies show that unemployment increases the risk of psychological distress and attempted suicide, after initial mental health status and confounding factors are accounted for. The relationship remains significant when time‐invariant characteristics of the individuals are controlled for. The time‐series studies found no relationship between unemployment and suicide, but levels of psychological distress were found to vary with changes in the labour market. This relationship remained significant after excluding the non‐employed, indicating that unemployment trends have effects beyond those directly associated with unemployment.     

Unemployment,Medicaid provisions,the mental health industry,and suicide

This study examines the association between unemployment, Medicaid provisions, the mental health industry, and adult suicides in nine US northeastern states from 1999 to 2009. Results show that increased unemployment is associated with more Medicaid beneficiaries and higher health care spending per beneficiary with no significant relationship with Medicaid mental health spending. The Medicaid beneficiary rate is positively associated with the number of mental health clinics, mental health and substance abuse social workers, mental health counselors, and psychiatrists, with no significant association with mental health physician offices or psychologists. Unemployment is also related with increasing suicide rates for the overall population and White non-Hispanics, aged 16–64, with the worst association for White non-Hispanic males. The composition of the mental health industry is also associated with suicide rates. Maintaining an appropriate mix of mental health facilities and professionals to prevent, diagnose, and treat mental health disorders remains a critical public health challenge.     

Social integration and suicide: Denmark, 1906–2006

Research on the relationship between social integration and suicide rates has neglected a historical perspective. Analyses are often based on relatively short time periods where there may not be enough variation in integration to affect the national suicide rate, or where overall integration levels are not low enough to buttress a link between a specific index of low integration, such as divorce, and suicide. The present investigation contributes to the literature by testing a hypothesis on domestic integration and suicide over a century, the longest period studied to date, encompassing periods of low and high overall social integration, and emergent risk and protective factors. Data are available for core variables for Denmark, 1906–2006. Annual data include those on suicide, and indicators of integration (divorces, births, marriages), as well as for economic strain (unemployment) and time trends. A log linear Poisson model is estimated, which explores the central divorce–suicide relationship under controls for confounders. Controlling for confounders, a one percent increase in divorce increases male suicides by 0.52% and female suicides by 1.12%. As anticipated, marriages decrease suicide: a one percent increase in marriages reduces suicide by 0.77% for men and by 0.63% for women. The trend in divorce, in particular, offers accurate predictions of suicide throughout the century. The relationship between divorce and suicide over a century is robust. The results offer the strongest support to date in support of a social integration model based on long term historical data on suicide and divorce.     

Impact of Social Service Expenditures on the Suicide Rate: The Cases of Asia Countries

An empirical study reported that the economic crisis in European countries affected their suicide rates and described that an increase in social services expenditures of US$10 per person in labor market programs impacted the decrease in unemployment suicides by 0.038%. However, there has no study that the economic crisis in Asia countries affected their suicide rates. Since 2008, South Korea has been ranked first for suicide rate in the OECD countries. Many studies have blamed the economic crisis that followed from the US financial crisis in 2007 as the critical cause. However, in the case of Japan, the suicide rate decreased in the same time period (2008–2011) even though they faced the same financial crisis. The purpose of this study was to examine why the different situations in Korea and Japan occurred with the economic crisis through testing whether the government’s social service expenditure affects the people’s suicide rate in Asia countries. These efforts will contribute to understanding the critical role of social service.     

Do Wages Compensate for Risk of Unemployment? Parametric and Semiparametric Evidence from Seasonal Jobs

Due to unique institutional and technological factors, seasonal agricultural jobs are characterized by much higher risk of unemployment than similar permanent jobs. I estimate compensating differentials for risk of unemployment and compare those with unemployment insurance benefits provided by the government. I use two sets of estimators. First, I calculate parametric estimates with Heckman correction. Second, I compute three versions of a distribution-free semiparametric estimator which is robust to misspecification of the residual distribution. The main finding of the paper is that there exists a positive compensating differential of 15.5% of the average wage. This corresponds to an implicit replacement rate significantly larger than the typical unemployment benefit.     

Can unemployment forecasts based on Google Trends help government design better policies? An investigation based on Spain and Portugal

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the unemployment issue and accelerated the digital transformation. Real-time data specific to ongoing revolution in applied economic analysis are increasingly demanded to anticipate changes in unemployment to improve decision-making. The aim of this paper is to test whether unemployment rate forecasts based on Google Trends data improve the predictions based only on macroeconomic indicators published with a longer time lag. The research has been carried out at the national level for Spain and Portugal, and the main novelty is the analysis of unemployment rate forecasts at the regional level for Spain using dynamic panel data models to implement the best policies to reduce unemployment. The keywords unemployment and job offers have been used in each language. The results obtained demonstrate the capacity of Google Trends data associated with unemployment to improve the predictions of unemployment rates in Spanish regions. Moreover, predictions based on Google Trends data at national level in Spain and Portugal are significantly more accurate than those based on autoregressive models for both countries.     

The impact of minimum age and child access prevention laws on firearm-related youth suicides and unintentional deaths

The aim of the present study is to quantify the association between child access prevention (CAP) and minimum age laws and state-level youth firearm-related suicide and unintentional death rates. This paper differs from prior research in several ways. First, this is one of the few studies to focus exclusively on youth death rates. Second, this study looks at those laws with the most impact on youth suicides and unintentional deaths. Finally, this study uses one of the largest and most recent data sets of any study on this topic. In order to estimate the determinants of youth firearm deaths, a fixed effects regression model, controlling for both state-level and year-specific effects, is used. Results indicate that state-level minimum age laws have no significant effects on either youth suicides or unintentional deaths and that state-level CAP laws have no significant effects on unintentional deaths. States with CAP laws, however, have lower rates of youth suicide, and, after the enactment of the Federal minimum age requirement, both youth suicide and unintentional death rates fell. Given the mixed results regarding state-level juvenile firearm laws, national restrictions on juvenile handgun possession may be more effective in reducing both youth suicides and unintentional deaths than state-level regulations.     

The welfare state as a context for children's development: a study of the effects of unemployment and unemployment protection on reading literacy scores

Data were analysed from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to examine whether the relationship between parental unemployment status and child reading literacy is modified by the level of unemployment protection provided by the nation. The sample consisted of 61,946 children, nested in 3,918 schools among 17 market economies. The results of multi-level analyses indicated that, after controlling for a range of individual, family and school covariates, children with unemployed fathers in all countries had significantly lower reading literacy scores than those of employed fathers (β = −8.84, SE = 2.01). The contextual effect of unemployment protection was not significant after accounting for fathers' employment status (β = −18.63, SE = 16.26). However, there was a significant negative interaction between unemployment protection and fathers' unemployment, yielding the unexpected suggestion that, in countries with higher levels of unemployment protection, children with unemployed fathers fare worse, both in relation to children with unemployed fathers in lower protection countries, and in comparison with children with employed fathers (β = −26.96, SE = 8.08). Possible explanations are advanced for this result, including the potential for a 'discouraged child effect' arising from the potential association between unemployment protection and higher local unemployment rates (though unemployment rates at the national level were not significant).     

Unemployment, Age, Gender and Regional Suicide in England and Wales 1974-90: A Harbinger of Increased Suicide for the 1990s?

Correspondence to Prof. Colin Pritchard, Department of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 SNH. Summary The Department of Health's Health of the Nation aims at a substantialreduction in suicide; this is a ‘vote of confidence’in the effectiveness of the community psychiatric and healthservices. However, it will be shown that a number of socioeconomicchanges have occurred which may lead to increased suicide; forexample British male suicide rose in the 1980s, significantlyassociated with unemployment. Though female suicide fell substantiallyover the period, across the regions suicide rates for both menand women were worse amongst the ‘work age’ bands,16–44 years, than the older groups. In respect to therelatively poorer rates amongst younger women, this may be linkedto unemployment and their unfulfilled job expectations. If thesuicide targets are not met, it is feared that the ‘failure’will laid at the door of the community and health services.     

Does Low Willingness to Respond Introduce a Bias? Results from a Socio-epidemiological study among Young Men and Women

The aim of this study was to investigate if willingness to respond can introduce bias in a population survey and to study the socio-economic characteristics of those with high and low willingness to respond. Two groups of final-year pupils at compulsory school were surveyed five years after leaving school, at the age of 21. The data were collected during class meetings, by mailed questionnaires, telephone and personal interviews. The response rates in the studies were proportionally high – about 98% and 90% respectively. In both surveys there were more men compared to women who were late respondents or non-respondents. Long-term unemployment and lack of upper secondary school for both men and women, as well as living with a partner for men, corresponded to low willingness to respond to a survey. A higher alcohol consumption – between 1.5 to 6.5 times – was observed among those with lower willingness to respond. Even a low rate of non-response can introduce a serious bias and produce uncertain results in, for example, studies on the consequences of youth unemployment on alcohol consumption.     

Suicide in Gaol: The Construction and Measurement of a Phenomenon

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody has brought the issue of inmate death, especially suicide, to public attention. This paper examines theoretical accounts and existing research on suicide during imprisonment. Current international findings on the characteristics of inmate suicide are discussed and compared with the findings from the first Australian study of death in prison. It is argued that the extant research on suicide presents a fragmented and incomplete account of the phenomenon. Further, the theoretical construction of suicide within international and local research and the methodological approach to its measurement contribute to the obfuscation of specific aspects of the phenomenon. In particular, attention is deflected from the policies and procedures within the institution. Suggested remedies for reducing the incidence of inmate suicide are thus constrained by the initial construction of the issue. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges posed for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. This is contrasted with the need for comprehensive accounts of death in custody which apply to all inmates.     

How unemployment duration affects social assistance receipt: evidence from Finland

This article reports on a study of the impact of unemployment duration on the probability of becoming a social assistance recipient and on the time spent on social assistance. The data are taken from a local Finnish labour market consisting of the cohort of unemployed people at a given date (n = 2,274). The data are linked to information about the number of months recipients received social assistance during the subsequent year. Count data regression models of the hurdle type are estimated. The results of the analysis suggest that the impact of unemployment duration on the probability of becoming a social assistance recipient is explained to a large extent by changes in the distribution of types of unemployment benefits between people with different lengths of time spent in unemployment. Unemployment assistance recipients are more likely to become social assistance recipients and to spend longer periods on social assistance than are recipients of unemployment insurance because the unemployment benefits for the latter are higher. Among social assistance recipients, time spent on the transfer increases with unemployment duration only for those who are in frequent need of assistance.     

Discouraged vs. added workers: Variation by gender,age, and marital status

This paper analyzes the relationship between aggregate unemployment and the labor force participation of males and females of differing ages and marital circumstances. According to the discouraged-worker effect, a higher unemployment rate causes some workers to leave the labor force leading to a reduction in both the labor-force participation rate and the unemployment rate. To shed light on this statistical incongruity, a unique data set consisting of monthly observations from the Current Population Survey is used to extract the labor force participation rates of males and females of three different age categories and three different marital classifications. Impulse functions from vector error-correction models indicate that discouraged workers are more likely though not exclusively to consist of married males and females between 50 and 65 years of age. No statistically significant evidence of a net added-worker effect is found among married females or males in any age group.     

Personal and Aggregate Unemployment and Psychological Symptoms

Four different types of individual-level unemployment experiences were studied in relation to psychological symptoms: (1) current unemployment following a recent involuntary job loss, (2) unemployment among students or homemakers, (3) reemployment after recent job loss, and (4) either voluntary or long-term (greater than 6 months) unemployment. Aggregate unemployment (the prevailing rate in the surveyed community) was also studied, both alone and in interaction with each of the four individual-level unemployment conditions. These five variables were each related positively to psychological symptoms, whether measured as a continuous variable or as a dichotomous variable simulating a case/non- case split, and controlling for the usual demographic variables and various other stressful life events. Little evidence was found for interactions of the unemployment conditions with aggregate unemployment or with potential moderators. A small panel study provided a partial longitudinal check for several of these cross-sectional findings. The findings are discussed in terms of public policy options.     

Sense of coherence during unemployment

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between different forms of hardship during unemployment and the sense of coherence (SOC). These hardships were considered in the framework of the finances–shame model, which has been developed to help provide a greater understanding of why unemployment is so painful to some whilst others are hardly affected by it. The hypothesis in this study was that the greater the financial hardships during unemployment and the more a person has been subjected to shaming by others because they are unemployed, the lower his or her SOC will be, and vice versa. The empirical data were collected by means of a cross-sectional survey of 1,249 unemployed people in a region in southern Sweden who at the time of the survey were engaged in some form of labour-market training or workfare programme. The dropout rate was 23%. The results from the study lent strong support to the finances–shame model. Among those who were exposed to a greater degree of financial hardship and also had more shaming experiences, the mean SOC score was 42.14 for women and 42.41 for men. The corresponding figures for those facing a lesser degree of financial hardship and with fewer shaming experiences were 67.10 and 66.66 respectively, i.e. figures which are on a par with or somewhat higher than for population studies covering the whole population.     

Patterns of change in youth unemployment regimes: France and Switzerland compared

The comparison between France and Switzerland enables us to compare a country that has a strong interventionist tradition in the labour market and whose youth unemployment is endemically high with a more liberal country that is faced with a more recent increase in youth unemployment but which, nevertheless, remains relatively measured. Starting from different rules and values, the two youth unemployment systems resemble each other insofar as both exclude most unemployed youth from all available benefits. From this angle, French egalitarianism rejoins Swiss differentialism. In both cases, it is not the least of paradoxes that the system of unemployment insurance so little benefits those who are most vulnerable to the economic crisis and the present dearth of jobs.     

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN AUSTRALIA, 1950–89

Although the incidence of unemployment in Australia is well established, the causes of unemployment remain controversial. Various putative causes for unemployment exist, including the unemployment benefits system. The present study sought to estimate the impact of the generosity of Australian unemployment benefits on the measured unemployment rate of three recipient groups, single adult males over 21, married males, and married males with two children, for the period 1950 to 1989 inclusive. The results of this statistical exercise are largely consistent with similar work done in Australia and elsewhere; namely, that while unemployment benefits did increase the measured rate for unemployment during the period 1950 to 1989 to a statistically significant degree, other stronger influences on unemployment were evident.     

Occupation and Suicide

Objective . Research on occupation and suicide has neglected multivariate models. It is not clear, for example, if persons in alleged "high-risk" occupations have high suicide risk because of occupational stress associated with the occupation or because of the demographic composition of the people in the occupation. The present study explores the relationship between occupation and suicide for 32 occupational groups. Methods . Data are from the national mortality file tapes, which cover 21 states. They refer to 9,499 suicides and 134,386 deaths from all other causes in 1990. Results . Bivariate logistic regression models find a total of 15 occupations with either significantly higher (e.g., dentists, artists, machinists, auto mechanics, and carpenters) or lower (e.g., clerks, elementary school teachers, cooks) risk than the rest of the working-age population. Multivariate models that remove the demographic covariates of occupation find only eight occupations with greater or lower than expected risk of death by suicide. Conclusion . The results underscore the need for demographic controls in the assessment of occupational risk of suicide. They are consistent with a previous study based on data from England. The findings provide the first systematic evidence on the problem for the United States.