I think your Durkheim note, Jim, might give a clue about the Swedes. ("Durkheim would say that people are over-integrated into society in Finland (which gives you one form of suicide) [...]." ) I'd imagine there's a lot of pressure on Swedes to toe the line, be an upstanding member of society, keep that shoulder to the common wheel, etc. What if you don't feel like soldiering on with the crowd? What if you want to tune out, go your own way, lone wolf it? What happens to the tall poppies, the really short poppies, the odd poppies? I may be wrong but I don't imagine there's a whole helluvalot of support for excentricity in Sweden. Whereas (correct me if I'm wrong, Brits) I don't think that's the case in the U.K..
And maybe the low rate in the U.S. (which surprised me more than anything in your list, Kelley) is attributable to the fact that it includes enough outlandish (as in beyond the village pale) subcultures that you'll almost always be able to find SOME little crowd you can hang with, feel real in, be confirmed by.
>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]
Thing I noticed about this list, beyond the interesting statistics, is that men are always mentioned first, women second. Just another one of those subtle but all-the-more powerful-for-that messages that guys are where it's at, huh.
cheers, Jo
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