The British Medical Journal has an article out this week on the relationship between suicides and unemployment in the UK, with an emphasis on the period 2008 - 2010.
The data looks like this:
The article concludes:
Between 2008 and 2010, we found 846 (95% confidence interval 818 to 877) more suicides among men than would have been expected based on historical trends, and 155 (121 to 189) more suicides among women. Historically, short term yearly fluctuations in unemployment have been associated with annual changes in suicides among men but not among women. We estimated that each 10% increase in the number of unemployed men was significantly associated with a 1.4% (0.5% to 2.3%) increase in male suicides. These findings suggest that about two fifths of the recent increase in suicides among men (increase of 329 suicides, 126 to 532) during the 2008-10 recession can be attributed to rising unemployment.
Conclusion The study provides evidence linking the recent increase in suicides in England with the financial crisis that began in 2008. English regions with the largest rises in unemployment have had the largest increases in suicides, particularly among men.
Sad as that conclusion is it is but the tip of the iceberg: suicide is the most extreme expression of mental distress. The manifestation of that distress across vast numbers of people who will, thankfully, not take their lives is now the daily fare of GPs, my wife amongst them.
This is the so far untold cost of this recession.
And it is the cost of George Osborne's callous refusal to tackle unemployment and to deliberately consign people to this despair as a result. He thinks he can get away with that because depressed people, he hopes, don't vote.
I sincerely hope that GPs do their best to make sure they do at the next election.
Hat tip: Clive Peedell
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are these the right unemployment rates? they are dropping at the right hand side of the graph which seems odd given we are in a double dip recession – and contradicts the comments in your blog entry immediately below this one (and unemployment rising in a recession is the logical thing to happen) – am i missing something?
These are claimant rates
They are being reduced by government action
Hmm, you are on very rocky ground here. One of the strange facts The Spirit Level highlighted was that suicide levels are invariably higher in more equal societies. Why that should be is open to argument (perhaps the Japanese and Scandanavians are just suicidal by nature whereas Africans are happy go lucky or some such racial stereotype), but to use statistics to link factors to suicide is a dangerous thing to do, simply because the statistics also support the argument that increasing equality in society also increases suicides.
Ah, so the BMJ don’t understand suicide
And a Jersey lawyer does
I’m not sure I buy that one
I’m only quoting the authors of The Spirit Level, a work I thought you agreed with. Or is it only the parts of it that confirm your prejudices that you agree with?
When the facts change I change my mind
What do you do?
Well done. You can quote Keynes. Quite what the relevance of that quote is I have absolutely no idea.
Anyway, if you want to get political about suicides, you have failed to notice these figures are to 2010, when Labour were in office.
And as I have noted elsewhere, the trend is getting worse according to all doctors I know
Brown tried to address the issue, which he did not create
Osborne decided to exacerbate it
That’s the point
Is it really that hard for you to work that out?
You seem to have hit a new low. Trying to link suicides to the government and one politician in particular. If this is true, then how do you factor in Labour’s disasterous policies which have left massive holes in the public finances. How many suicides do you attribute to this…1, 2. 5, 50 ? If you want to start the count in 2008 – 2010 period (as the figures do) I think you will find PM Brown was in charge at this point.
First, the BMJ made the link
Second, the link with Osborne is unambiguous
Third, Labour did not trash the economy – banks did. Get facts right, as the BMJ did
You’ve still not answered the main point.
.”..recent increase in suicides among men (increase of 329 suicides, 126 to 532) during the 2008-10 recession can be attributed to rising unemployment”.
27th June 2007 – 11th May 2010 – Gordon Brown NOT George Osbourne.
So..in fact the BMJ links it to Gordon Brown – unequivocally (as you like to say).
Accoridng to all doctors I speak to the stats are much worse now
I speak to quite a lot of doctors
And Brown tried to tackle unemployment – and was doing well at doing this
Osborne abandoned the unemployed
My comments entirely justified
My last post seems to have “got lost in the system”. The actual figures for emploment show an increase of 400,000 in work since the change of government. There is a broader picture showing a reduction in public sector employment of 500,000 and an increase in private sector employment of 900,000, albeit that the wages in the public sector seem to be much lower, athough this may be explained in part by a reduction in employment in the financial sector (and consequently an increase of more than 900,000 in the rest of the private sector). All of which seems to be a move towards a healthier economy, even if it is taking time to get there.
Healthier?
Lower wages?
Lower productivity?
Lower demand?
And fundamental services not provided?
Come on