Abstract
Existing economic models of suicide fail to explain sudden drastic change (“displacement”) in suicides and the lack of responses (“persistence”) in suicides after changes in underlying socioeconomic variables. A social norms model of suicide successfully explains the displacement and persistence of suicides as observed in some countries. The model suggests the role of social norms in suicides is complicated; social norms can act as a double-bladed sword. When there are few people in the society committed suicides, social norms suppresses the equilibrium suicides; on the other hand, when there are many people in the society committed suicides, social norms may promote the equilibrium suicides.
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source: OECD database and Ministry of Health and Welfare of Taiwan. Note: according to the structure change test results presented in Table 1, there was a statistically significant increase of 23.84% in the suicide rate in Korea in 2002, and a statistically significant increase of 21.06% in the suicide rate in Taiwan in 2005. Both increases in the suicide rates had shown no sign of subsiding afterwards, resulting in displacements in the suicide rates in these two countries
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Notes
Christian et al. (2019) analyze the relationship between economic shocks and depression and provide suggestive evidence in support of stress and mental health as risk factors of suicidal behavior. Although the conceptual framework is based on a psychological model, it is consistent with the Hamermesh and Soss (1974) expected utility model because the economic situation or age (to the extent that anxiety and depression increase with age) may be linked to the probability of committing suicide. We thank the referee for pointing out this work.
Chen et al. (2012a) surveyed empirical studies on the relationship between suicide rates and a variety of socioeconomic variables; among them, income and aging. Most studies provided evidence supporting the theoretical implications from the Hamermesh-Soss type of models. For more recent studies see: Bergeron (2014), Chang et al. (2013), Choi et al. (2015), Christian et al. (2019), Dos Santos et al. (2016), Reeves et al. (2014).
As a higher level of human capital is associated with a higher level of expected utility, the middle-aged group suffers the most when becoming unemployed, to the extent that human capital depreciation is more severe in this group. Following this line of reasoning, using U.S. county-level data, Pierce and Schott (2016) provided evidence on higher suicide rates among middle-aged white Americans and trade liberalization.
The number of suicides peaked in 2007 with 33,093 people committed suicide. A steady decline in the numbers began in 2010 for 6 consecutive years until 2015. In 2012, the number slipped under 30,000 for the first time since 1998. See Chen et al. (2012b, 2015) and Chen et al. (2009) for more detailed discussions on suicides in Japan.
The study provided a decomposition of the displacement (“abrupt increase” as used in their paper) in the number of suicides in Japan in 1998 and the subsequent persistence of suicide thereafter, by factors such as: gender, age, population structure, reasons for committing suicide, employment status, and means of committing suicide. This study complements Chen et al. (2015) in that it provides a theoretical interpretation of the suicide situation in Japan with help from the school of social norms economic studies.
This Akerlof-type social norm is different from other usage of the term, as in for example Gibbs (1965): “a social norm is a rule which, over a period of time, proves binding on the overt behavior of each individual in an aggregate of two or more individuals”, or in Young (2015): “Social norms are patterns of behavior that are self-enforcing within a group: Everyone conforms, everyone is expected to conform, and everyone wants to conform when they expect everyone else to conform”.
In the Akerlof-type social norms model, an individual makes a suicide decision with no regards to the group that he or she belongs to, and considers all suicides in the society homogenous, and therefore, the model is not in the line of research on suicide contagion or copycat suicides as in the study of the “Werther effect”.
\( c\left( \cdot \right) \) can be considered a psychological cost as in Lin and Yang (2006, 2010). Notice that, this psychological cost does not necessarily require physical punishment such as fines to enforce it. As stated by Akerlof (1980), one of the founders of the social norms model used in this study, what matters is “a parameter representing the loss of utility from disobeying the code of honor by a believer in the code.”.
Becker and Woessmann (2011) explain that the substantial positive effect of Protestant suicides in 1816 − 21 and 1869 − 71 in Prussia may be explained by the emphasis in Protestant doctrine on religious individualism, while Catholics have a more integrated religious community, and therefore Protestants have a lower utility from continuing to live and a lower cost of committing suicide relative to Catholics. This, in our model, can be constructed as two “attitude-towards-suicide” functions \( c^{P} \left( x \right) \) and,\( c^{C} \left( x \right) \) (or, two psychological cost functions), for Protestants and Catholics respectively, and \( c^{P} \left( x \right) > c^{C} \left( x \right), \forall x \). The authors thank the referee for bringing our attention to this study.
\( S\left( {a, Y^{P} ,0} \right) > 0 \) suggests that there are individuals who would want to commit suicide even when there are no others doing so in the society;\( S\left( {a, Y^{P} ,N} \right) < 1 \) suggests that there are individuals who would never want to commit suicide even if everyone else in the society does.
In Panel A of Fig. 2, there are three stable equilibria (points \( x_{1}^{A} \), \( x_{3}^{A} \), and \( x_{5 }^{A} \)); ignoring the two “extrema” (points \( x_{1}^{A} \) and \( x_{5 }^{A} \)), we are left with the medium-level suicide equilibrium at \( x_{3}^{A} \). In Panel B, there are 2 stable equilibria (points \( x_{1}^{B} \) and \( x_{3}^{B} \)); ignoring the extreme point (\( x_{3}^{B} \)), we are left with a low-level suicide equilibrium at \( x_{1}^{B} \). On the other hand, in Panel C, there are two stable equilibria (points \( x_{1}^{C} \) and \( x_{3}^{C} \)); ignoring the extreme point (\( x_{1}^{C} \)), we are left with a high-level suicide equilibrium at \( x_{3}^{C} \). Finally, in Panel D, there is one single stable equilibrium at a medium level of suicides (at point \( x_{1}^{D} \)).
Changes in other exogenously given parameters, for example, the “direct” cost of suicide associated with accessibility of various suicide means, can be modeled and analyzed similarly.
Thus, aging, as modeled in the paper, is the process of the population becoming older on average. This is essentially the same modeling as in Preston et al. (1989) in the case where there are no deaths, births, or migrations.
Although a study from the public health perspective, Turecki and Brent (2016) provides in Panel 1a comprehensive list of social factors associated with risk of suicide. Among these factors, a well developed social support network is considered as the first of the social factors associated with a decreased risk of suicide.
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Chen, J., Huang, SC. Suicide, Aging, and Permanent Income: A Social Norms Approach. Soc Indic Res 150, 867–885 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02359-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02359-y