About Suicide
Overview of Suicide in the 20th Century
The purpose of this section is to highlight significant social trends and changes in Australia from 1921 to 1998 and compare these with the incidence of suicide during this period as represented in figure 1. Following the graph is a list of significant social events during this period which is intended to give the reader a sense of how social change and suicide rates correlate. Admittedly there are many more events, issues and circumstances which do influence individual suicide, however, we are attempting to portray "the bigger picture" showing the relationship between social influences and suicide, which could be seen as one of the indicators of a society's well-being.
Statistics at a Glance
Figure 1. Age-standardised rates, 1921 to 1998. (rates per 100,000 of the mid-year population)
Some Significant Social Events -1921 to 1999
- 1930 - The Great Depression.
- 1932 - Nationwide unemployment peaked at a
high of 30%. - 1939 - 1945 World War II: increase in employment opportunities.
- 1949 - Beginning of Post-war economic prosperity "The Lucky Country".
- 1959 - Greater availability of hypnotic and sedative drugs (barbiturates) following
changes in the
pharmaceutical provisions of the National Health Act in 1959. - 1966 - Australia send troops to Vietnam.
- 1967 - Changes to the Act restricted the ready availability of these drugs.
- 1970's - The much safer benzodiazepines replaced barbiturates as a treatment for depression which helped lower the female suicide rate by overdose.
- 1972 - Equal pay for work of equal value.
- 1960's - 70s A time of great social reform - Feminism Movement peaks and Civil Rights Movement, Gay and Lesbian Movements gain momentum, movement towards a Humanistic based Education philosophy.
- 1975 - Family Law Act - allowing only one ground for divorce, an irretrievable breakdown in marriage.
- 1982 - Jobless at 500,000 as trade crisis deepens.
- 1984 - The Sex Discrimination Act - made both direct and indirect sex discrimination in employment unlawful.
- 1986 - Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunity for Women).
- 1986 - Beginning of the recession.
- 1980s - 90s Major technological changes in the workplace "Age of the Computer".
- 1987 - 20th October - Black Tuesday on World Stock Markets. Australia's stock market plunged by 25%, wiping $55 billion off the value of traded shares.
- 1991 - Australian Institute of Family Studies found that 40% of all marriages end in divorce.
- 1992 - According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics on average people spent nearly 4 hours a day on home leisure activities: 71% watching television, 21% socialising at home (Having visitors), 8% listening to the radio (as a main activity) and watching videos and playing computer games were more popular for younger people.
- 1995 - 1999 National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy implemented.
- 1999 - National Suicide Prevention Strategy initiated.
SOURCES: AUSTRALIA THROUGH TIME, 125 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY,1 SUICIDES, AUSTRALIA.2 AUSTRALIAN SOCIAL TRENDS 1995,3 AUSTRALIAN SOCIALS TRENDS 2000.4
Suicide in Australia: an overview of the 20th Century
Between 1921 and 1998 suicide rates fluctuated in response to a range of social, health and economic factors. In 1921 there were 621 registered suicides, and of those 510 were males and 111 were females. The age-standardised suicide rate was 14.0 deaths per 100,000 of the standardised population. By 1998 the number of deaths from suicide had increased to 2,683, and the age-standardised death rate was 14.3 per 100,000 of the standardised population.5
Although the rates were similar for 1921 and 1998 there were a number of fluctuations during this period. The suicide rate rose at the start of the depression reaching a record high of 16.8 per 100,000 in 1930. (It is interesting to note that in 1930 unemployment was recorded of 20%, the suicide rate reached 16.8 per 100,000, yet when unemployment reached a record high of 30% in 1932, the suicide rate had dropped to a rate of 13.1 per 100,000). Suicide declined during World War II, reaching a record low of 8 per 100,000 in 1943. This decline was consistent with trends observed in many countries.
After the war, suicide rates began to rise gradually and peaked in 1963 at 17.5 per 100,000 of the standard population. This rise and subsequent fall coincides with the unrestricted availability of hypnotic and sedative drugs and to the restricted availability of such drugs. The suicide rate then declined gradually between 1967 and 1984.6
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the suicide rate increased, peaking in 1997 with a standardised suicide rate of 14.6 per 100,000. 40 fewer suicides in 1998 saw the suicide rate decrease to 14.3 per 100,000.
Trends Among Selected Groups
Youth Suicide
When comparing age groups, the biggest increase in deaths from suicide over the period 1921 to 1988 has been in the 15-24 years age group - approximately 6 per 100,000 in 1921 to 17 per 100,000 in 1998. Increased suicide rates in this group, particularly among young males, began in the late 1960s with a sharp increase in the 80s and 90s, peaking in 1997, when Australia recorded the highest youth suicide rate among industrialised countries. In 1998 youth suicide saw a decrease of 64 deaths, dropping the age-specific rate from 19.1 in 1997 to 16.7 in 1998.7 Deaths from suicide in this age group have continued to decrease since 1998. In 2001, suicide accounted for 339 deaths in the 15-24 year age group with a death rate of 12.7 per 100,000 persons. This is 255 of total male deaths by suicide in this age group in 2001 and16% of total female deaths.
Middle-aged suicide
There has been an overall increase in rates among persons aged 25-44. This age group currently has the highest suicide rate in comparison to all other groups. In 1921 the age-specific rate for this age group was approximately 15 per 100,000, as compared to 20 per 100,000 in 1998. Within this group the majority of the increase occurred in male suicide rates. In 2001 the age group with the highest age-specific death rate was the 25-34 group with 20.6 per 100,000 followed by the 35-44 age group with a rate of 18.9 per 100,000. Numerically these two age groups accounted for 47% of the total suicide deaths in 2001.
Urban and Rural Suicide
It is only since 1998 that data disaggregated by capital cities, other urban and rural locations has become available. In 1998 there were 1,589 suicides in capital cities, 511 suicides in other urban and 557 suicides in rural areas. Throughout the 10 year period, 1988 to 1998, rural areas had the highest rates of suicide ranging from 14.6 to 18.5 per 100,000 persons. People living in capital cities had the lowest rates of suicide (ranging from 12.8 to 13.9 per 100,000 persons ) and those living in other urban areas had the next lowest rate of suicide (ranging from 14.7 to 16.2 per 100,000 persons). Suicide rates for males were higher than that of females in all locations throughout the period 1988 to 1998 and males in rural areas had the highest rates (ABS, Suicides, 3309.0, 1921- 1998, 11-12).
Aboriginal Suicide
In 2001, the death rate among the Australian indigenous population was more than twice that of the total population and indigenous age-specific death rates were higher than for the total population for all age groups. External causes of death (which include accident, assault and intentional self-harm) reflect this imbalance comprising 17% of indigenous deaths compared to 6% of total deaths.
- It is increasingly recognised that Aboriginal rates of suicide are far higher -from double to three times- the rate for non-indigenous people.
- Submerging the figures for Aboriginal suicide within the national figures hides this dramatic disparity. It also deflects attention from the reasons for such a stark disparity , "Aboriginal suicide has unique social and political contexts and must be seen as a distinct phenomenon." Indigenous suicide in Australia must be viewed in the context of Aboriginal history where the continual legacy of colonial dispossession is not comparable to the contexts of non-indigenous suicide. The need for indigenous suicide to be viewed in political context is also underlined by the finding that suicide seems to be rare in traditional Aboriginal life.
- And while it is difficult to quantify attempted indigenous suicide, a sobering contention is that this phenomenon is " an omnipresent feature of contemporary Aboriginal life."
- Discussion of indigenous suicide as part of "the national picture," thus not only fails to account for the prevalence of suicide. It also fails to account for more specific historical and political influences on the disproportionately high indigenous suicide rate.
Gay and Lesbian Suicide
Research into gay and lesbian suicide is rare. There are few Australian studies in this area and few available statistics. But existing research suggests higher rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts among the gay and lesbian population.
- In the most extensive study of its kind, researchers have found that urban gay men in America are at least three times more likely than heterosexual men to have planned suicide, attempted it or both.
- One in five gay men surveyed said they had gone as far as to actually make a plan to commit suicide and 12% had actually attempted it, usually before the age of 25.
- Australian research suggests that lesbian women face significant suicide risk
- Such findings likewise suggest that it is illegitimate to subsume issues pertaining to homosexuality and suicide within the national picture as a whole. If gay and lesbian people are attempting and thinking about (as distinct from completing the act of) suicide in disproportionate numbers, this in itself attests to the need for specific focus on these groups. As far as the rates of completed suicide are concerned, social stigmatisation and continuing homophobia also suggest the likely underreporting of death by suicide within the gay and lesbian community (if in fact family members and friends are necessarily aware of the sexual of the deceased at all).
- The reality of discrimination and differential treatments points to the limits of viewing gay and lesbian suicide in "individualist" terms. To the extent that it is harder to be homosexual in a society that celebrates heterosexuality as the 'norm' the more specific pressures gay and lesbian people experience on a daily basis can begin to be acknowledged. Like racism (and thus in common with indigenous suicide) overt and covert prejudice on the grounds of sexuality means that influences on suicide are not purely personal. They are necessarily shaped by socio-political contexts. This is important to bear in mind when interpreting Canadian, North American and Australian findings that issues related to homosexuality are involved in up to one third of males under 24 who commit suicide.
- A uniformed response to such findings might suggest homosexuality to per se be somehow "casual" in suicide. But it is the social attitudes and prejudices surrounding homosexuality that can and need to be confronted which are major risk factors.
References (see appendix)
