Citation

Pendergast PM, Wadsworth T, Kubrin CE. J. Happiness Stud. 2019; 20(1): 81-99.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10902-017-9938-y

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 2011 researchers published a paper that exposed a puzzling paradox: the happiest states in the U.S. also tend to have the highest suicide rates. In the current study, we re-examine this relationship by combining data from the Multiple Mortality Cause-of-Death Records, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the American Communities Survey to determine how subjective well-being and suicide are related across 1563 U.S. counties. We extend the original study in important ways: by incorporating both absolute and relative measures of subjective well-being; by examining the happiness-suicide association at a more suitable level of analysis; and by including a more robust set of control variables in the model. Contrary to the previous study, we do not observe any significant relationship, negative or positive, between the absolute and relative well-being of places and suicide rates at the county-level. Implications for the study of suicide rates and relative deprivation are discussed. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide; Happiness; Subjective well-being; Relative deprivation