Does unemployment aggravate suicide rates in South Africa? Some empirical evidence

Andrew Phiri and Doreen Mukuka ()
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Doreen Mukuka: Department of Economics, Finance and Business Studies, CTI Potchefstroom Campus

No 1705, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University

Abstract: Our study investigates the cointegration relationship between suicides and unemployment in South Africa using annual data collected between 1996 and 2015 applied to the ARDL model. Furthermore, suicide data is further disintegrated into ‘sex’ and ‘age’ demographics. Our empirical results indicate that unemployment is insignificantly related with suicide rates with the exception for citizens above 75 years. On the other hand, other control variables such as per capita GDP, inflation and divorce appear to be more significantly related with suicides. Collectively, these findings have important implications for policymakers.

Keywords: Unemployment; Suicide; Cointegration; Causality; South Africa; Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 C51 E24 E31 E71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2017-07, Revised 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-hea and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Does unemployment aggravate suicide rates in South Africa? Some empirical evidence (2017)
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