Citation

Stockard J, O'Brien RM. Int. J. Comp. Sociol. 2006; 47(1): 5-33.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0020715206063258

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Using data on age-specific suicide death rates from 19 modern nations and cohorts born as early as 1875-9, we find that two indicators of cohort-related social capital, relative cohort size and percentage of nonmarital births, are positively and significantly related to suicide rates. These effects are significantly stronger in the English-speaking family of nations, which have historically provided fewer political and social supports to families and children. The analytic model, an extension of the Age-Period Cohort Characteristic model, which utilizes hierarchical linear modeling, provides strong controls for age and period effects as well as for autoregressive effects within cohorts. Our data allow us to include older age groups and data from a wider range of countries than previous studies. Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications.

Language: en

Keywords

suicide; Suicide; mortality; Social capital; Families of nations; nineteenth century; Nonmarital births; Relative cohort size; twentieth century