>Excepting Finland and Norway, highest suicide rates are in three
>anglophone countries (where individualism ideologies are deeper and
>best-developed).
not sure where you're getting the data, jim, or if i'm understanding you correctly but the numbers i pulled from the WHO last summer are different.
from: kelley (kcwalker at syr.edu) Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 22:39:12 -0400
sweden used to have one of the higher suicide rates at 24.59/1000 deaths. some of this was attributed to what folks now call s.a.d. [seasonal affective disorder i think is the term] i can safely say that, after spending the afternoon out in the middle of the ocean fishing [40 lbs of grouper and snapper thank you], sunshine does wonders for the ole grumpies and encourages a who gives a flying fig attitude that made jimmy buffet and the florida keys famous.
seriously, though, there are three basic patterns of suicide:
1. rates increases steadily w/ age for men in countires like austria, france, italy, japan, germany and for women in austria, italy, japan, germany. [in descending order]
for a sense of what this means, consider that the suicide rate for men 75 and older was 109/1000 in japan, 89/1000 in france, and in austria it was 75/1000 deaths.
2. suicide rates peak for men [15-34] and later for men 75 and up in countries like australia, canada, england, netherlands, united states. [descending order]
3. suicide rates peak 45-54 for men in denmark, finland, sweden and for women in australia, canada, france, netherlands, poland, sweden, u.s.a. [descending order]
a better way of thinking about the issue would be to ask if the suicides rates have always been 'high' in sweden and other countries which have high rates. if so, then we can pretty much guess that socialism isn't the problem. turns out that sweden's suicide rate has been pretty steady at around 15-20/1000 throughout 20th c., with an upsurge in the 60s and 70s where it got it's rep. for having the highest suicide rate. hungary holds that position now, having achieved a rate in the 40s/1000 in the mid-seventies, steadily rising from a rate that was about the same as sweden's and the USA's 50 yrs ago. it seems to me that the rise in rates during the 60s and 70s probably had something to do with sweden's age demographics.
here's the latest published rates that i have:
suicide per 1000 deaths [1994 world health organization]
Estonia 40.95 Hungary 35.38 Slovenia 31.16 Finland 27.26 Denmark 22.13 Austria 22.12 Switzerland 21.22 France 20.79 Mexico 17.58 Belgium 19.04 Japan 16.72 Sweden 15.75 Germany 15.64 Portugal 14.83 Singapore 14.06 Canada 13.19 Mauritius 12.98 Norway 13.64 New Zealand 12.81 Australia 12.65 Scotland 12.16 United States 12.06 Hong Kong 10.29 Netherlands 10.10 South Korea 9.48 Ireland 9.81 N. Ireland 8.41 Italy 8.00 England/Wales 7.68 Israel 7.05 Spain 7.77 Greece 3.40 Kuwait 1.66
kelley
>The other night at a gathering the hostess casually stated that Sweden has
>the highest suicide rate in the world. No one contradicted this statistic.
>When I questioned why a social democracy far in advance of most in regard
>to a civilized way of living would result in high rate of suicide, no one
>knew.
>It doesn't make sense to me that a better life for all would result in
>a higher suicide rate. In fact, it would make our efforts for a better
>world questionable, to say the least. Is this some more anti-liberal
>propaganda?
>
>Please enlighten me or point a way to usefuly website or statistics. Thank
>you.
>Bert