Relationship Among Social Capital, Employment Uncertainty, Anxiety, and Suicidal Behaviors: A Chained Multi-mediator Mediation Modeling Analysis

Abstract

Objective

Social capital is a significant predictor of suicidal behaviors among Chinese rural migrants. However, the mechanism, including the impact of employment and mental health, has not been fully understood. This study aims to examine the complex relationships linking social capital to suicidal behaviors.

Method

Data were collected from a probability sample (n = 1,245) of rural migrants in Wuhan, China. Social capital was used to predict suicidal behaviors, with employment uncertainty as step 1 mediator and anxiety as step 2 mediator. Suicidal ideation and attempt were analyzed separately using a chained moderated mediation model. Years of migration was included as moderator in all models to control its confounding effect.

Results

Of the total sample, 50.9% were male with mean age of 32.0 (SD = 7.8) years. The association between social capital and suicidal ideation was significantly mediated by employment uncertainty (indirect effect [95% CI] = −0.14 [−0.24, −0.04]), but not for suicidal attempt (−0.02 [−0.20, 0.15]). Anxiety significantly mediated the same association for both suicidal ideation (−0.19 [−0.37, −0.01]) and attempt (−0.20 [−0.40, −0.01]). The chained relationship from social capital to employment uncertainty, anxiety, and suicidal behaviors was also significant with indirect effect of −0.05 [−0.09, −0.01] for both suicidal ideation and attempt. Similar results were observed for bonding and bridging capital.

Conclusions

Social capital may exert an effect on suicidal behaviors through employment and mental health among rural migrants in China. Social capital–based suicide prevention must consider both employment and mental health problems to obtain better effects.

Highlights

• Employment and anxiety mediate social capital–suicidal behavior relation.

• Bonding capital affects anxiety and bridging capital affects employment.

• There is a chained relation among social capital, employment, anxiety, and suicidal behaviors.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• employment
• rural migrants
• social capital
• suicidal behaviors

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank researchers from the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention for collecting the data.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

None.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data can be provided under reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant number: R01 MH08632]. The funding source had no involvement in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, and manuscript writing.

Notes on contributors

Bin Yu

Bin Yu and Xinguang Chen, Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Xinguang Chen

Bin Yu and Xinguang Chen, Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.