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Suicide and the contemporary woman: Are male and female suicide rates converging?

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Abstract

Nationwide statistics on White suicide rates for the years 1960–1978 are examined to assess whether the suicide rates of women are increasing relative to those of men. This is accomplished by calculating for the total population and for several age groupings the “sex differential” (SD), which is defined as the percentage of suicides which are female after adjustments are made for the sex distribution in the population. The data reveal that the SD narrowed from 1960–1967, held steady from 1968–1972, and then widened slightly from 1973–1978. The most important aspects of these trends are that (a) the narrowing of the SD is due more to declining suicide rates among older (over-40) males than to increasing female suicide rates, and (b) the narrowing of the SD and the small increases in female suicide rates occurred prior to 1970 and thus were earlier than would be expected on the basis of changing sex-role expectations. Post hoc explanations of these patterns refer to methodological factors and to changes in social integration resulting from a variety of sociohistorical factors.

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  1. The Pennsylvania State University, 16603, Altoona, Pennsylvania

    Renee Hoffman Steffensmeier

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Steffensmeier, R.H. Suicide and the contemporary woman: Are male and female suicide rates converging?. Sex Roles 10, 613–631 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287269

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