Middle Age Suicides Soar in US

Suicides usually afflict the elderly and teenagers. But data for the past twenty years in the US shows a 30 percent increase in suicides for those between the ages of 35 to 64 and a 40 percent increase for those in that age group who are white, both men and women. The figures are sufficiently high that they demonstrate more Americans now dying from suicide than from auto accidents, previously the leading cause of death.

The 'why' of it is still not fully understood, but as the following article suggests, there are plenty of clues. Economic despair is the leading supposition. Stubbornly high unemployment, declining household incomes, vanishing net worth, foreclosed homes and increasing medical costs for an aging population at a time of disappearing benefit packages are all contributors to that sense of financial grief. The importance of these these beliefs is the sense of failure they engender. Since the Great Depression, Americans have been led to think that every generation will be better off financially than its predecessor. Even though the changing circumstances due to globalization and technology are well-documented and reported, the resultant sense of disappointment and guilt is pervasive.

Other reasons sometimes voiced as possibilities for this troubling trend include pressures related to the economy, like having to support elderly parents and underemployed children on already shrinking household incomes, though that is really an offshoot of the first. Some have even posited that easy access to painkillers is another possible cause, but that is obviated by the fact that shooting oneself with guns is the most popular course of action for those inclined to take their own lives.

Whatever the specifics, it is clear that a significant subset of the population, ostensibly in their top earnings years despair of ever turning the situation around, especially given the widespread opposition to further government spending or stimulus. From both a sociological and competitive standpoint, the US will have to grapple with the implications of its potentially most productive adults deciding, instead, that life is not worth living. JL

Candy Sagon reports in AARP Blog:

Was it because of the devastating economic recession of the past decade, or the widespread mortgage crisis? Or maybe it was due to the abuse of prescription painkillers like OxyContin, or the pressure of being the “sandwich generation”?
There are plenty of theories for why new government figures show the suicide rate for middle-aged Americans — adults ages 35 to 64 — jumped nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.
The increase was even higher — a 40 percent rise —for white, middle-aged men and women. Among men, the increase in suicide was highest for those in their 50s — a jump of 50 percent; among women, those ages 60 to 64 saw a 60 percent rise. Overall, more men took their own lives than women, by more than 3 to 1.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which published its findings in the May 3 issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, more people died from suicide than from car accidents. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 from suicides.
The question is, why? As the New York Times reports: “Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-age Americans is surprising.”
Officials acknowledge that the reasons for suicide are complex, but there are lots of theories for the increase — from easy access to opioids like OxyContin, to emotionally and financially burdened boomers.
One theory is that white baby boomers have always had higher rates of depression and suicide, and that has remained true as they have entered middle age, notes the Associated Press. During the 11-year period studied, suicide went from the eighth leading cause of death among baby boomers to the fourth — behind cancer, heart disease and accidents.
In addition, boomers have had to deal with the stress of being the so-called sandwich generation — caring for aging parents while still providing financial and emotional support to adult children — something past generations haven’t felt. “It may not be that [boomers] are more sensitive or that they have a predisposition to suicide, but that they may be dealing with more,” the CDC’s deputy director, Ileana Arias, Ph.D., told the New York Times.
Add to that the dramatic economic downturn during the past decade, and it’s not hard to see why suicide rates might have been affected. Historically, suicide rates rise during periods of severe financial hardship and setbacks, the CDC finds. Plus, there’s been the rising amount of chronic health conditions among the middle-aged, as CNN reports.
At least one expert told the Times that the risk for suicide is not likely to decrease in the near future, as the next generation faces the same pressures. A Rutgers University sociologist who has studied suicide rates observed, “All these conditions the boomers are facing, future cohorts are going to be facing many of these conditions as well.”