Are Elderly Dependency Ratios Associated With General Population Suicide Rates?

Ajit Shah
Additional contact information
Ajit Shah: Ethnicity and Mental Health, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK, West London Mental Health NHS Trust, London, UK, ajit.shah@wlmht.nhs.uk

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2011, vol. 57, issue 3, 277-283

Abstract: Background: The elderly population size is increasing worldwide due to falling birth rates and increasing life expectancy. It has been hypothesized that as the elderly dependency ratio (the ratio of those over the age of 65 years to those under 65) increases, there will be fewer younger people available to care for older people and this, in turn, will increase the burden on younger carers with increased levels of psychiatric morbidity leading to an increase in general population suicide rates. Methods: A cross-national study examining the relationship between elderly dependency ratios and general population suicide rates was conducted using data from the World Health Organization and the United Nations websites. Results: The main findings were of a significant and independent positive correlation between elderly dependency ratios and general population suicide rates in both genders. Conclusion: The contribution of cross-national differences in psychiatric morbidity in younger carers on general population suicide rates requires further study. The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in younger carers of older people should be examined by: (i) cross-national studies using standardized measures of psychiatric morbidity that are education-free, culture-fair and language-fair; and (ii) within-country longitudinal studies with changing elderly dependency ratios over time.

Keywords: suicides; suicide rates; elderly dependency ratios (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764009356839 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:57:y:2011:i:3:p:277-283

DOI: 10.1177/0020764009356839

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().