Suicides Rising among Middle-Aged Americans

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON | Mon Sep 27, 2010 5:29pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates for middle-aged people are edging up -- particularly for white men without college degrees -- and a combination of poor health and a poor economy may be driving it, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Middle-aged people usually have a relatively low risk for suicide as they seek to support their families, but baby boomers are bucking this trend, sociologists Julie Phillips of Rutgers University in New Jersey and Ellen Idler of Emory University in Atlanta found.

"If these trends continue, they are cause for concern," Phillips and Idler wrote in the journal Public Health Reports.

"Male baby boomers have yet to reach old age, the period of the male life course at highest risk for suicide; if they continue to set historically high suicide rates as they did in adolescence and now in middle age, their rates in old age could be very high indeed."

The researchers used suicide data from the National Center for Health Statistics and analyzed it by age group, marital status, education and other factors. The period they studied preceded the most recent economic crisis.

"Following a period of stability or decline, suicide rates have climbed since 1988 for males aged 40-49 years, and since 1999 for females aged 40-59 years and males aged 50-59 years," they wrote.

In 1979 the suicide rate for men aged 40 to 49 was 21.8 per 100,000. It rose to as high as 24 per 100,000 in 1996 and to 25 by 2005. For men 50 to 59 it was 23.9 in 1979, fell to 20.4 per 100,000 in 1999 and rose again to nearly 23.8 in 2005.

For women it was much lower -- 9.9 in 1979 for women aged 40 to 49, rising and falling during the years in between and ending at 7.8 per 100,000 in 2005.

"One question we asked was does this have something to do with the people?" Phillips said in a telephone interview. "Baby boomers have been a group noted for high rates of suicide in the past. It makes me wonder if there is something about baby boomers that may contribute to this pattern."

To figure out what might be causing the changes, Idler and Phillips looked at potential outside factors -- although they note that just because two things happen at the same time, it does not prove cause and effect.

"Unemployment rates in the U.S. rose between 2000 and 2003 at the same time that middle-aged suicide rates increased rapidly," they wrote.

"In addition, rates of bankruptcy increased between 1991 and 2007, in part because of changes in the law, but with personal financial consequences nevertheless."

And baby boomers are the least healthy middle-aged generation, with large rates of obesity and the diseases that result, such as diabetes and heart disease.

"The percentage of those aged 45 to 64 years with multiple chronic diseases increased from 13 percent in 1996 to 22 percent in 2005, with a concomitant rise in out-of-pocket spending for health-care services," Phillips and Idler wrote.

"The burden of disease falls disproportionately on those who are less educated, the group also least likely to have adequate employer-based health insurance."

As other studies have shown, the risk of suicide was substantially larger for unmarried than for married people, with unmarried middle-aged men 3.5 times as likely to commit suicide as married middle-aged men.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The youngest boomers were born in ‘64 making them 46 years old. Even if this study was conducted 2 years ago, the range 40-49 demo has just as much to do with GenX than boomers.

GarpetAndrac Report As Abusive

So the argument here is that if everyone had health care, there would be no suicide? I think the real issue is that middle aged people are killing themselves at a greater rate because they see little hope for their futures. That means that if they have families, they see little hope of being able to provide for them.

Unemployment brought about by very bad fiscal policies is the real cause, not a lack of employer provided health care (code for government mandated health care). People need to feel vital and capable of taking care of their families, and many are losing that capability. It frightens me to think of it…

helloseekers Report As Abusive

Welcome to Obamaville. Obama will be thrilled at these numbers. He will see the reduction in medicare as a positive number for his agenda..and a relief for his death panel.

ringmaster76120 Report As Abusive

Ringmaster, Typical right wing stupid comment. If you’d educate yourself a little instead of swigging beer and watching Faux News you’d know it’s all BS.

factcheck Report As Abusive

Welcome to the land of the qualitatively cheapened, trivial yet expensive and indispensable college degree, its necessity having been foisted on society by the same folks who promoted the handing out of costly mortgages as if their possession was a human right. Lacking a college degree equivalent to a high school diploma of past times will keep you from being considered for the most menial clerk position – unless you’re a woman or black, of course. All of this is moot today, since manufacturing’s been driven by unions to friendlier climes. So many degree holders are now working at Walmart and McDonald’s that it’s becoming obvious to the most thick-headed that they wasted their money and the government’s. One day soon, all the toll collectors will be some of those white guys who didn’t off themselves. The black women formerly in those positions will have moved on to greener pastures – maybe they’ll be in real estate, helping to sell off prime American property to our Chinese masters.

GreatWhiteBwana Report As Abusive

Well, it would be tough to be out of a job at the prime of your life and belong to a demographic group that is essentially blamed for every ill in the world.

coldax Report As Abusive

Besides education, what other factors? How about geographical location (down to neighborhood level), family size, wealth, race, religious affiliation, profession? Where is the link to the study? Is an increase of 4 in 100,000 that significant, especially considering that the rate has fluctuated?

shadfly Report As Abusive

Right..It’s because they don’t have healthcare…lame..politics as usual..the reason middle age people feel hopeless is because people like Pelosi threatening to steal and nationalize their retirement savings that they have worked for their entire life and give it to losers or to those who aren’t even citizens here. She is mega-rich and of course could not understand this despair. It’s the liberal agenda that is making middle age people feel suicidal. Not only are they turning everything that we thought was good and calling it bad such as God, just one example, pick something, anything, the world is upside down. They don’t see this as getting any better and therefore some want to check out before they have to witness the complete downfall of this once greatest nation . Happy?

TGIF Report As Abusive

I think the reason the suicide rate is going up for white men in there 50s is because all their life most have worked hard and all of a sudden they lose their job and can’t find work.

Let’s face it, no matter how much more experienced and competent a man is in his 50s HE is the first to be fired. I see it everyday in my industry. Young pretty women with little experience and many of them less educated are replacing good hard working WHITE men who are producing results.

Is it any wonder they feel hopeless and take the easy way out.