The Association Between Public Social Expenditure and Suicides: Evidence from OECD Countries

Abstract

Our finding suggests that social welfare protection can be a pivotal factor for suicide epidemiology, and especially in countries experiencing a social crisis or transition.

Suicide Rate Differences by Sex, Age, and Urbanicity, and Related Regional Factors in Korea

“…This result coincides with the existing studies [6,24,25], which have stated that the factors causing the elderly to commit suicide are due to physical diseases, being bereft of one's spouse, lack of income, and decrease in social activities, all of which are common in old age [26,27]. When comparing suicide rates in the age groups older than 20 in the rural and urban areas, every combination of age group and sex showed significance significantly higher rate in all rural areas except for the female group in 65 years or above.…”

“…Compared to the U.S., which is known for strong rural decentralization, Korea's social welfare policy has a very strong centralized authoritarian rule, which led us to assume that the relationship between the suicide rate and region's social welfare expenditures was not very significant. Park et al [6] stated that, in comparison between countries, although social welfare expenditure level does not affect the absolute suicide rate, it does decrease the growth rate of suicide. In case of Korea, this implies that rather than regional level social welfare policies, national level policies can be more effective in decreasing the suicide rate, and it also implies that by consistently investing in social welfare policies, one can decrease the growth rate of suicide.…”

“…Research related to suicide has focused primarily on the national level [3-6] or individual level [7]. However, to understand the high suicide rate in Korea, it is important to understand the characteristics of the local communities in which the subjects of these studies resided.…”

“…It is widely accepted that suicide rates in general are influenced by the degree of urbanization and differ by sex; suicide rates are higher in rural areas than urban areas [6,9,10] and higher among males than females [11-14]. However, studies on suicide rates based on rural and urban areas mostly deal with changes in tendency over time [15], and many studies have been limited to only a few regions [9,10].…”

Association Between Local Government Social Expenditures and Mortality Levels in Korea

“…According to a previous study on the association between public social expenditures and suicide in 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, an annual increase in social welfare expenditures was related to a decrease of the suicide rate. However, the difference between that study and the present study is that health status in the previous study was measured only by suicide rates, and it was comparative study among nations instead of domestic local areas [9]. In another Korean study analyzing factors affecting the suicide rate in 248 cities, counties, and provinces from 2006 to 2008, no significant relationship was found between the proportion of two local government expenditures spend on social welfare and the suicide rate [10].…”