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Citation
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Deady M, Tan L, Kugenthiran N, Collins D, Christensen H, Harvey SB. Med. J. Aust. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Abstract
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In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, the imposition of social distancing policies and related labour market impacts have resulted in extensive job losses. Globally, the International Monetary Fund has predicted the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. In May 2020, 2.3 million Australians (one in five employed people) were either unemployed or had work hours reduced for economic reasons, resulting in the steepest rise in rates of unemployment on record -- a change from 5.2% in March to 7.1% -- with Treasury predicting a rate of 8% by September 2020.
Unemployment alone is associated with a two‐ to threefold increased relative risk of death by suicide compared with being employed, and sudden spikes in unemployment are associated with corresponding surges in the population rates of suicide. The global financial crisis, which led to the deepest recession since the 1930s and the loss of 30 million jobs worldwide, is estimated to have resulted in at least 10 000 additional economic suicides between 2008 and 2010 in Europe and North America. Projections using historical data suggest suicide rates may increase by 3.3-8.4% over the 2020-2021 period in the United States and up to 27% in Canada.
Of course, all this is speculative and although the links between economic recessions and suicide are well documented, what is less clear is how the relationship plays out in the context of larger sociocultural and health events such as COVID‐19. The 1918-1920 influenza pandemic caused around 39 million deaths worldwide and resulted in governments implementing quarantine, public hygiene and social distancing policies, but evidence regarding its impact on world economies and suicide is limited. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003 came at the height of the Asian financial crisis, so disentangling the two is difficult. However, during this period, suicide rates in a number of Asian nations increased in tandem with unemployment, reaching historical peaks in 2003.
As the situation continues to change daily, an accurate estimate of likely unemployment resulting from the COVID‐19 pandemic is difficult. Even current estimates under‐represent the impact, as individuals who are still employed but at significantly reduced hours are discounted. This is of particular concern when considering the global financial crisis, which saw Australian unemployment take a comparatively minor increase from 4.0% to 5.8% and coincided with an increase in suicide rates of 22% and 12% for unemployed men and women respectively.9 As the present crisis may potentially double the current unemployment rate, one can extrapolate to alarming conclusions, with some (albeit unpublished) modelling reflecting this projection
Language: en |