Marital status, sex, and suicide: new longitudinal findings and Durkheim’s marital status propositions^*

Abstract

The purpose of the paper was to use new longitudinal data to investigate the impact of marital status on suicide, and test Durkheim’s marital status propositions. Previous research found marital status was associated with suicide, but some studies neglected sex, most of the research was cross-sectional, and divorce and separated statuses were often combined. Data were obtained from the latest release of the U.S. National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS), consisting of the largest U.S. sample of suicide victims, 2,013 out of 1.5 million persons. Proportional hazards and logistic regression models were fitted to the NLMS data based on follow-up from 1990 to 2011. Results showed that when combined, the divorced and separated were over 88% more likely to suicide than the married (ARR = 1.886, CI = 1.649, 2.156). When split, the divorced had suicide risk that was over 97% higher than that of the married (ARR = 1.973, CI = 1.711, 2.274). Separated individuals experienced suicide risk that was nearly 52% greater than that of the married (ARR = 1.515, CI = 1.130, 2.037). The Mountain and southern census divisions had higher suicide risks than New England. Discussion focused mainly on Durkheim’s theory of suicide.

Notes

Notes

1 A good review of the cross-sectional work in this area is that of Stack and Scourfield (2015).

2 As Pope (1976) noted, the rank-ordering of suicide risk by marital status depends on whether social integration or social regulation is involved. For example, single people for Durkheim have the highest risk with regard to social integration, but for social regulation the widowed are at greater risk than singles. Similarly, the divorced have higher risks than the widowed, and so unlike the egoistic theory divorce is the highest risk factor when it comes to social regulation (anomic suicide). For more on the rank-ordering of suicide risk see Beck (2006), Besnard (2000), and Halbwachs [1930] 1978). For a recent paper on suicide research prior to Durkheim, including the work of Morselli, see Lee (2009). Morselli was the first in 1879 to suggest marriage provided protection from suicide compared to the unmarried. Also see Turner (1996).

3 The document by Marcel Mauss, likely written in 1930, was recently discovered by Besnard (2009).

4 Among the huge literature in this area also see Gibbs and Martin (1964) and Smelser (1971).

5 Males comprised about 85% of the singles suicide data in Durkheim’s French data. The calculations were based on Durkheim ([1897] 1979): 178, 196. Other than the French data, Durkheim also had data from a small area in Germany, previously called Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, which he argued were limited because of low numbers of suicides.

6 Parts of Suicide, especially Durkheim ([1897] 1979: 171–216, 259–276), can be read as an attempt to argue against this ordering of marital status.

7 In addition to the French data indicating widowed women had higher suicide risk than singles, Durkheim’s Oldenburg data ([1897] 1979: 177) showed widowed men had higher suicide rates than singles, and Durkheim was well aware of some data indicating high suicide rates among the divorced ([1897] 1979: 259–261).

8 The result is that for Durkheim widowed marital status becomes the lowest suicide risk, even though arguably it involves the greatest pain: “Widowhood is indeed as complete a disturbance of existence as divorce; it usually even has much more unhappy results, since it was not desired by husband and wife, while divorce is usually a deliverance for both,” Durkheim ([1897] 1979: 262). And while Durkheim realizes divorce involves considerable pain, he nevertheless argues it has less suicide risk than the more chronic single status.

9 The U.S. Census Bureau divides the United States into four Regions that are then sub-divided into nine Census Divisions: New England–all states east of New York state; the Mid-Atlantic–New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania; the East North Central– states west of Pennsylvania, north of Kentucky, and east of the Mississippi River; the West North Central—states west of the Mississippi, north of Oklahoma and Arkansas, and east of the mountain states of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado; the South Atlantic—states bordering the Atlantic ocean south of New Jersey with the addition of West Virginia; the East South Central—Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky; the West South Central—states west of the Mississippi River but east of New Mexico and north of Kansas and Missouri; the Mountain division—states west of the West South Central and West North Central, but east of the states of the Pacific division, that are adjacent to or in (Hawaii) the Pacific ocean, and see US Bureau of the Census (2019).

10 For reviews of the various theories related to male suicide risks and the “gender paradox” in suicide, see Canetto and Sakinofsky (1998); Maris, Bermanm, and Silverman 2000; Stack 2000.

11 In the same vein see especially p. 215, 272, and Lehmann (1994, 1995). See also Durkheim’s anthrocentrism (Ross 2017).

12 Suicidal behavior includes suicide attempts but many are gestural, self-injury not for the purpose of dying but to communicate to others (Nock and Kessler 2006). It may be useful to combine completed suicides with non-gestural attempts in part because such attempts tend to involve more females and therefore may give us a more complete understanding of the issue (Stack and Wasserman 2009).

13 And see the similar plea by Giddens (1965).