Social conformity and suicide

Anna Bussu, Claudio Detotto and Valerio Sterzi

Working Paper CRENoS from Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia

Abstract: We study the relationship between suicide rates and socioeconomic factors by using a panel data at Italian province level in the time span 1996-2005. Our analysis focuses on the impact of social norms on suicidal behaviours. In particular, beyond the usual social correlates of suicide rates, we propose an aggregate measure of social conformity which refers to the religious sphere as an area of conflict between individual and social behaviours. GMM and dynamic spatial panel data approach are implemented to control for serial and spatial autocorrelation. The results confirm the primary role of family, alcohol consumption and population density in explaining the suicide rates in Italy, while the economic variables, namely income per capita and economic growth, do not appear to have any effects.

Keywords: suicide; family; conformity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 R19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/sites/default/files/WP12-07.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Social conformity and suicide (2013)
Working Paper: Social conformity and suicide (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201207

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