Are people in poor countries more or less likely to commit suicide than Americans?

[raccoon]

I read the following in an economics textbook.

(The suicide statistics in the book indicate that Americans are more likely to commit suicide than citizens of poor countries, but with any statistics you have to consider how reliable they are. I've heard of, and you probably have too, countries deliberately understating some statistics, such as the number of AIDS cases, so as not to discourage tourism. OTOH, there is something to the argument that people busy surviving don't have the time to think about suicide.)



There are approximately 5.6 billion people in the world. Of these, 4.2 billion (about 75 percent) live in developing, rather than developed, countries. Per capita income in developing countries is around $500 per year; in the United States per capita income is about $24,000.

These averages understate the differences between the poorest country and the richest. Consider the African country of Chad-definitely one of the world's poorest. Its per capita income is about $200 per year-less than 1/100 of the per capita income in the United States. Moreover income in Chad goes primarily to the rich, so Chad's poor have per capita income of significantly less than $200.

Before I consider the obstacles to economic development, let's consider how a person lives on that $200 per year as many people in the world do. To begin with, that person can't:

-- Go out for Big Macs.
-- Use Joy perfume (or any type of perfume). Wear designer clothes.

And that person must:
-- Eat grain-usually rice or corn-for all meals, every day.
-- Mix fat from meat-not meat itself-with the rice on special occasions (maybe).
-- Live in one room with 9 or 10 other people.
-- Work hard from childhood to old age (if there is an old age). Those too old to work in the fields stay at home and care for those too young to work in the fields. (But children go out to work in the fields when they're about six years old.)
-- Go hungry, because no matter how many family members can work in the fields, probably the work and soil don't yield enough to provide the workers with an adequate number of calories per day.

In a poor person's household it's likely that a couple of the older children may have gone into the city to find work that pays money wages. If they were lucky and found jobs, they can send money home each month. That money may be the only cash income their family back in the fields has. The family uses the money to buy a few tools and cooking utensils.

The preceding is, of course, only one among billions of different stories. Even Americans and Europeans who are classified as poor find it hard to contemplate what life is really like in a truly poor country.

Poor people in developing countries survive and often find pleasure in their hard lives. There are few suicides in the poorest countries. For example, the U.S. suicide rate is approximately 13 per 100,000 people. In Costa Rica it's 4.9; in Mexico it's 1.4; and in Peru it's .5. Who has time for suicide? You're too busy surviving. There's little ambiguity and few questions about the meaning of life. Living! That's what life's all about. There's no "Mom, what am I going to do today?" You know what you're going to do: survive if you can. And survival is satisfying.

Often these economically poor societies have elaborate cultural rituals and networks of intense personal relationships that provide individuals with a deep sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Are people in these societies as happy as Americans are? If your immediate answer is no, be careful to understand the difficulty of making such a judgment. The answer isn't clear-cut. For us to say, "My God! What a failure their system is!" is wrong. It's an inappropriate value judgment about the relative worth of cultures. All too often Americans have gone into another country to try to make people better off, but have ended up making them worse off....


Colander, David C. ECONOMICS, 2nd edition. Chicago: Irwin. 1995
p.828-829

[BlooInBloo]

1. hahahah! Bullshit. America SAID they were trying to make people better off...

We were lying.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. My immediate answer, without reading your post, was that Americans are more likely

to commit suicide.

In fact, I think I had once known the underlying data, but even without the numbers, I would have guessed a higher suicide rate for America. The reason is that people who suicide are generally ones who have the time and resources to ruminate about their awful lives. People on the edge of desperation are too busy just staying alive to contemplate death.

[jody]

3. You might browse suicide rates at the link below. Japan is #11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

[jody]

10. Mea culpa, Japan is #8. n/t

[Barack_America]

4. I think this analysis underestimates the role of mental illness in suicide. nt

[stray cat]

5. When you are struggling to survive you learn to fight and are less spoiled over smaller things

[Aristus]

6. I'm reminded of a book I read not long ago called "The World's Most Dangerous Places".

It was kind of a travelogue for people who want to visit places far off the tourist radar. Countries included in the list are Iraq (of course), Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, North Korea, and so on.

One of the reasons listed for many of these countries being dangerous places is extreme poverty. But after about 4/5ths of the book enumerating all of these hostile, impoverished places, it went on to talk about how so many of these desperately poor people lived their daily lives. It said that they don't live in endless grinding despair; they live their lives. They live their lives. They take the good when they can, and bear up under the bad. It was some of the most inspiring, life-affirming writing I'd read in years.

[treestar]

7. Suicide is related to depression

That is a mental illness and no respector of class.

Americans have "personal responsibility" for being poor, perhaps? In another country, you aren't encouraged to believe it's your own fault.

[izquierdista]

8. Read Joe Bageant

His article posted here earlier today was all about psychological help and counseling in the Third World, and he just confirms what you posted.

[Marrah_G]

9. Are the records on these things as well kept very poor countries?