Societal Integration, Culture, and Period: Their Impact on Female Age-Specific Suicide Rates in 20 Developed Countries, 1955–1989

The Gender Gap in Suicide Rates: An Analysis of Twenty Developed Countries, 1955-1994

“…Girard (1993) argued that high levels of income inequality should have greater impact on males than females because sex roles dictate a greater impact of income on the self-concept of males than on female self-concept. Analysis of male and female age-specific suicide rates (Cutright and Fernquist 2000a;2000b) support this hypothesis. Male suicide rates increase while female rates do not rise with increasing income inequality.…”

“…Stack (1997;1998) also reports differences in ''suicide ideology'' between persons in different marital statuses that mirror differences in suicide rates between marital status sub-groups. Cutright and Fernquist (2000b , Table 4) report significant positive impacts of suicide acceptability on all 10 year age-specific female suicide rates. Because male suicide rates exceed female rates we expect high levels of suicide disapproval to reduce the gender gap because an increase in disapproval should have a larger impact on decreasing male than female rates.…”

“…The theoretical model appropriate to measure the gender gap in national suicide rates is, we believe, one that has been empirically tested with cross-national data on both male and female rates (Cutright and Fernquist, 2000a;2000b). Their model operationalizes Durkheim's (1951Durkheim's ( , pp.…”

Religion and Suicide Acceptability: A Cross-National Analysis

“…No study has tested indicators for all four perspectives; it is unknown whether each of the indicators independently affects suicidality. Moreover, the bulk of sociological work has been based on highly aggregated data (e.g., Breault 1986; Cutright and Fernquist 2000a, 2000b, 2005; Durkheim 1897/1951; Stack 1980, 1985; for reviews, see Colucci and Martin 2008; Lester 2000; Stack 1982, 2000). Thus, it is unclear whether macrolevel social processes operate on the individual‐level relationships (Breault 1994; Stack 2000).…”

Status and Solidarity: A Reformulation of Early Durkheimian Theory*

“…Much of the empirical work on suicide has followed Johnson's suggestion (cf. Cutright and Fernquist 2000; Miley and Micklin 1975; Pescosolido and Georgianna 1989; Stack and Wasserman 1992). This solution, however, does not preserve the distinction between fatalism and altruism, and it significantly diminishes the value of Durkheim's work in understanding the social.…”