New Findings On Gender: The Effects Of Employment Status On Suicide

Abstract

Background and objectives

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of gender and employment on suicide with the use of expanded unemployment statuses as covariates.

Methods

Data were obtained from release 5 of the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, a prospective study of deaths in the United States. Proportional hazards regression models were fitted to the data based on follow-up from 1990 to 2011.

Results

Unemployment was significantly associated with suicide (ARR=1.628, 95% CI=1.356, 1.954), and men had suicide deaths that were five times greater than women (ARR=5.104, 95% CI=4.565, 5.707), however when the sample was stratified by sex, the impact of unemployment on suicide was much higher among women (ARR=2.988, 95% CI=2.045, 4.366) than among men (ARR=1.393, 95% CI=1.131, 1.717).

Conclusion

Contrary to many findings and gender assumptions, unemployed women in the U.S. have higher deaths from suicide than unemployed men. Discussion focused on explanations for gender disparities in unemployment.

Keywords:

• suicide
• unemployment
• gender

Acknowledgments

We thank the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the National Center for Health Statistics for providing the data for this research. The views and opinions of the paper are those of the authors and they do not necessarily reflect those of these institutions. We also thank the anonymous reviewers of the paper for their constructive comments.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.