Female Labor-Force Participation as Suicide Prevention: A Population Study in Taiwan

Abstract

Objective

Female labor-force participation (FLFP) has been theorized as contributing to higher suicide rates, including among women. Evidence on this relationship, however, has been mixed. This study explored the association between FLFP and suicide in an understudied context, Taiwan, and across 40-years.

Methods

Annual national labor-participation rates for women ages 25–64, and female and male suicide-rates, for 1980–2020, were obtained from Taiwan’s Department of Statistics. The associations between FLFP rates and sex/age-stratified suicide-rates, and between FLFP rates and male-to-female suicide-rates ratios were assessed via time-series regression-analyses, accounting for autoregressive effects.

Results

Higher FLFP rates were associated with lower female suicide-rates (ß = −0.06, 95% CI (Credibility Interval) = [−0.19, −0.01]) in the adjusted model. This association held in the age-stratified analyses. Associations for FLFP and lower male suicide-rates were observed in the ≥45 age-groups. FLFP rates were significantly and positively associated with widening male-to-female suicide-rates ratios in the adjusted model (ß = 0.24, 95% CI = [0.03, 0.59]).

Conclusion

This study’s findings suggest that FLFP protects women from suicide, and point to the potential value of FLFP as a way of preventing suicide. In Taiwan, employed women carry a double-load of paid and family unpaid care-work. Child care-work is still done by mothers, often with grandmothers’ support. Therefore, this study’s findings contribute to evidence that doing both paid work and unpaid family care-work has more benefits than costs, including in terms of suicide-protection. Men’s disengagement from family care-work may contribute to their high suicide rates, despite their substantial labor-force participation.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Female labor-force participation (FLFP) has been theorized to increase suicide.

• Over time higher FLFP was associated with lower suicide, particularly in women.

• Higher FLFP was associated with widening male-to-female suicide-rate ratios.

Keywords:

• Female labor force participation
• male-female suicide-rates ratio
• suicide
• suicide prevention

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pampel presumed that state-sponsored childcare services are a need of, and a benefit for employed mothers—rather than a need of, and a benefit for employed fathers or any adult with young children. Pampel’s ideas about who needs and benefits from state-sponsored childcare reveal his bias that childcare is mothers’ responsibility.

2 The Human-Development-Index is compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (2022). It measures countries’ economic and social development by tapping into the following three dimensions: access to healthy life, education, and decent standard of living.

Additional information

Funding

YYC was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under [Grant MOST 111-2314-B-532-003-MY3], and by the Department of Health, Taipei City Government, under [Grant #11201-62-001]. PSFY was supported by the RGC-STG project (STG4/M-701/23-N)

Notes on contributors

Ying-Yeh Chen

Ying-Yeh Chen, MD, ScD, Taipei City Psychiatric Centre, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei City, Taiwan; Institute of Public Health and Department of Public Health, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei City, Taiwan.

Ted C. T. Fong

Ted C. T. Fong, PhD, Centre on Behavioral Health, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Paul S. F. Yip

Paul S. F. Yip, PhD, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Silvia Sara Canetto

Silvia Sara Canetto, PhD, Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.