There’s no question about it–American baby boomers are taking their own lives like never before. Suicide rates in the United States jumped dramatically for 35- to 64-year-olds between 1999 and 2010, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These self-inflicted deaths increased from 13.7 per 100,000 to 17.6. As a result, in 2010 more people died from suicide (38,364) than from car accidents (33,687).
The increase in suicide is particularly acute for older folks: Those aged 50-54 years saw their rates increase from 20.6 per 100,000 to 30.7, a jump of 49.4%. For those aged 55-59 years the rates increased by 47.8%. The rates for women, although much lower than for men, also climbed: “Among women,” the report states, “suicide rates increased with age, and the largest percentage increase in suicide rate was observed among women aged 60—64 years (59.7%, from 4.4 to 7.0).”
Is Wall Street’s version of capitalism driving up our suicide rates?
We really don’t know why humans take their own lives. But we can get a sense of what events correlate with increasing and decreasing suicide rates. Ileana Arias, CDC deputy director, provides some suggestions:
“It is the baby boomer group where we see the highest rates of suicide. There may be something about that group, and how they think about life issues and their life choices that may make a difference….The increase does coincide with a decrease in financial standing for a lot of families over the same time period.”
Dr. Arias is referring to research that shows a correlation between the rise of suicide rates and economic hard times. For example a 2001 study by sociologist Augustine J. Kposowa found:
“After three years of followup, unemployed men were a little over twice as likely to commit suicide as their employed counterparts. Among men, the lower the socio-economic status, the higher the suicide risk. Among women, in each year of followup, the unemployed had a much higher suicide risk than the employed. After nine years of followup, unemployed women were over three times more likely to kill themselves than their employed counterparts.”
More Older Workers Join the Ranks of the Long-Term Unemployed
In winner-take-all capitalism, if your job disappears during a massive sustained job crunch, you will have a hard time finding another
This article originally appeared on : AlterNet