Sociology's One Law: Religion and Suicide in the Urban Context

County Level Suicide Rates and Social Integration: Urbanicity and Its Role in the Relationship

“…Breault (1988) found that income inequality and suicide were completely unrelated, and Pample's In support of the connection between suicide rates and income inequality, multiple researchers have found that not only is income inequality related to suicide, at times it can be one of the strongest contributors to suicide rates (see Faupel et al, 1987;. A positive correlation between income inequality and violent crime, suicide specifically, has been found by others as well (see Hansmann andQuigley, 1982 andKowalski et al, 1987).…”

Socio‐economic Studies on Suicide: A Survey

“…Relatively deprived individuals may experience more stress, leading to poor health conditions and ending directly or indirectly, through alcohol abuse or smoking, in suicide (Wilkinson, 1997; Stack, 2000; Rodríguez, 2005). As a measure of income inequality, most studies use the Gini index as a proxy for income inequality (Faupel et al , 1987; Rodríguez, 2005, 2006; Chen et al , 2008, 2009a; Minoiu and Rodríguez, 2008). Some studies use other variables; for example Freeman (1998) uses the change in annual poverty rates for families with children in addition to the annual change in per capita income as a proxy for living standards, and Daly and Wilson (2006) use interpercentile income ratios to take into account the effect of relative income and absolute income.…”

“…However, despite the theoretically clear prediction, the empirical evidence is mixed. Some studies (Faupel et al , 1987; Daly and Wilson, 2006; Chen et al , 2008; Minoiu and Rodríguez, 2008) find a significantly positive relationship between income inequality and suicide rate, while others fail to find a statistically significant relationship (Neumayer, 2004; Rodríguez, 2005; Leigh and Jencks, 2007).…”

“…Mainly from the sociological perspective, Stack (2000) has a summary review of hundreds of studies, which suggests, by and large, a positive association between divorce and suicide. From the point of view of economic study, many also find that higher divorce rates are likely to be associated with higher suicide rates (Kimenyi and Shughart, 1986; Faupel et al , 1987; Burr et al , 1994; Lester, 1995; Mäkinen, 1997; Freeman, 1998; Chuang and Huang, 2003; Neumayer, 2003; Helliwell, 2007; Minoiu and Rodríguez, 2008). However, recent studies show that the male suicide rate is more sensitive to divorce than the female suicide rate (Neumayer, 2003; Rodríguez, 2005; Watanabe et al , 2006; Chen et al , 2008; Koo and Cox, 2008).…”

“…Birth rate and migration measure have usually served as proxies for the degree of social integration. Most studies show that a high birth rate is related with lower suicide risk and support a negative relationship between social integration and suicide rates (Durkheim, 1897; Faupel et al , 1987; Mäkinen, 1997; Neumayer, 2003; Rodríguez, 2005; Koo and Cox, 2008). However, some studies show a positive correlation between birth rates and suicide rates and explain that childcare may cause too much strain or be too much of an economic burden, thus leading to suicidal behaviour (Lester, 1995; Chen et al , 2008, 2009a).…”