Suicide and economic uncertainty: New findings in a global setting

S Tolga Er; Ender Demir; Emre Sari

doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101387

Suicide and economic uncertainty: New findings in a global setting

SSM Popul Health. 2023 Mar 21:22:101387. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101387. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

S Tolga Er¹, Ender Demir^{2

3}, Emre Sari^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg, Johnsallee 35, Hamburg, 20148, Germany.
² Department of Business Administration, School of Social Sciences, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 102, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland.
³ Istanbul Medeniyet University, Kadıköy, İstanbul, Turkey.
⁴ School of Business and Economics, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, 9010, Tromsø, Norway.
⁵ Division for Health and Social Sciences, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Tromsø, Norway.

Abstract

This study extends the previous literature on the association between country-level economic uncertainty and suicide rate to 141 countries by introducing the World Uncertainty Index. We first examine the role of economic uncertainty on the suicide rates in a global setting for the period 2000-2019 and then analyze if the association varied across different income groups. Our primary findings suggest that a rise in economic uncertainty is related to an increased suicide rate. According to the estimates based on various income levels, higher economic uncertainty is associated with increased suicide risk in high-income countries. For middle- and low-income countries, we find no such impact. Overall, we conclude that contemporaneous and lagged economic uncertainty is a concern for the increased risk of suicide, especially in high-income countries. The results highlight the need for proactive suicide-prevention strategies in uncertain times.

Keywords: Economic uncertainty; Panel data; Poisson; Suicide; Vulnerability paradox; World uncertainty index.