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High female suicide rates: ecological fallacy or sad reality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

E. Salib
Affiliation:
Peasley Cross Hospital, St Helens, and Honorary Senior Lecturer, Liverpool University Email: [email protected]
G. Tadros
Affiliation:
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, Birmingham, UK
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Abstract

Type
Columns
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2007 

Yip & Liu (Reference Yip and Liu2006) present a demographic perspective of female suicide in China, the only country in which the suicide rate is higher among women than men. However, this reversed gender representation also exists in certain communities in other countries. In the Indian subcontinent suicide rates are higher in men than in women but the difference is lower than in most countries: the male:female suicide ratio in India is 1.3:1 (Reference Cheng, Lee, Hawton and van HeeringenCheng & Lee, 2000). Suicide among immigrants from the Indian subcontinent to Britain was higher among young married women than men (Reference Soni Raleigh, Bulusu and BalarajanSoni Raleigh et al, 1990). Tadros & Salib (Reference Tidros and Salib2006) also reported that significantly more Asian women than Asian men killed themselves in Birmingham and Solihull, a clearly reversed gender ratio compared with suicide in the White population and in other ethnic groups in Birmingham and the UK as a whole.

Suicide terrorism is not an egoistic suicide but none the less is a form of fatal self-harm in the legal and human sense and has a distinct underlying political, individual and social logic. The support of and acceptance by the attackers' own communities ensure an endless supply of volunteers who seek ‘voluntary violent death’ in a bizarre act of so-called martyrdom, in order to promote what they firmly believe to be a just cause. Women carried out 15% (64) of such attacks over the past 25 years (Reference PopePope, 2005). Chechen women carried out 60% of all suicide bombings in Russia and 70% of such attacks were executed by Kurdish women in Turkey (Reference PopePope, 2005). There is also a high proportion of women suicide bombers in the Tamil Tigers (30%). al Qa'ida, which associates itself with Islamic fundamentalism, never used female suicide attackers from its formation in 1993 until the tragic attack in Jordan in 2005.

In general, women are at a lower risk of suicide than men and a protective effect of child-bearing in terms of suicide risk has been postulated (Reference Catalan, Hawton and van HeeringenCatalan, 2000). This does not appear to apply to female suicide bombers or to some countries and cultures in which gender representation in suicide is reversed. A higher female:male suicide ratio is not unique to China. The significantly higher rate of female suicide observed outside China is not an ‘ecological fallacy’ but a sad reality.

References

Catalan, J. (2000) Sexuality, reproductive cycle and suicidal behaviour. In International Handbook of Suicide and Attempted Suicide (eds Hawton, K. & van Heeringen, K., pp. 294307. John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Cheng, A. T. A. & Lee, C. (2000) Suicide in Asia and the Far East. In International Handbook of Suicide and Attempted Suicide (eds Hawton, K. & van Heeringen, K.), pp. 2948. John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Pope, R. A. (2005) Dying to Win. The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism pp. 203216. Random House.Google Scholar
Soni Raleigh, V., Bulusu, L. & Balarajan, R. (1990) Suicides among immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 4650.Google Scholar
Tidros, G. & Salib, E. (2006) Elderly suicide in primary care. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry doi: 10.1002/gps.1734 (Epub ahead of print).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yip, P. S. F. & Liu, K.Y. (2006) The ecological fallacy and the gender ratio of suicide in China. British Journal of Psychiatry, 189, 465466.Google Scholar
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