Crisis
The Lancet Psychiatry has published a
study saying that approximately 45,000 deaths by suicide, every year, around the world,
can be attributed to unemployment.
The team used longitudinal modeling to calculate the effect unemployment had on suicide in 63 countries over four world regions between 2000 and 2011. The researchers note that they looked at this period so they could analyze the data in times of economic stability (2000-07) and in times of economic crisis (2008-11).
They found that:
One in five suicides a year was associated with unemployment. And: "After the crisis year in 2008, the number of suicides increased short-term by 5,000 cases," says Nordt. Other studies had already estimated this figure. What was not known, however, was that around 46,000 suicides overall were associated with unemployment that year: "Therefore, suicides associated with unemployment totaled a nine-fold higher number of deaths than excess suicides attributed to the most recent economic crisis," explains Nordt.
Probably not surprising was the team's findings around the
world's financial crisis in 2008.
Perhaps most interestingly, the researchers found that unemployment was associated with 41,148 suicides in 2007 and 46,131 in 2009, which suggests that the recession in 2008 was responsible for 4,983 additional suicides. This indicates that unemployment is responsible for nine times as many suicides as the economic crisis.
Linked to the study is an editorial piece noting that the suicides may only be a small part of the overall psychological impact of financial crisis.
"Many affected individuals who remain in work during these hard times encounter serious psychological stressors due to pernicious economic strains other than unemployment, including falling income, 'zero-hour' contracting, job insecurity, bankruptcy, debt and home repossession," they explain.
As such, Webb and Kapur say that as well as understanding the effect of unemployment on suicide, we need a better understanding of other "psychosocial manifestations of economic adversity," such as non-fatal self-harm, stress and anxiety, depression, hopelessness, alcohol abuse, familial conflict and relationship breakdown.