You Want To Kill Yourself?

Suicide
Elusive, but not always unstoppable
Jun 21st 2007 From The Economist print edition

....suicide is a mysterious phenomenon; it defies generalisations. Emile Durkheim, the father of modern sociology, wrote in 1897 that suicide rates were a key sign of the state of a community. It was commonest, he reckoned, at two extremes—highly controlled societies, or loose, atomised ones. Since then, his successors have filled thousands of books with theories about what makes people take their own lives: the negative factors which remove the desire to live, and the positive ones that can make self-killing an attractive or even “fashionable” option.

....one new trend that is clearly pushing the real incidence of suicide up is the growing use of the internet to learn about, plan or even encourage self-killing. ...Nowhere are such internet deaths more common than where they started—in Japan, whose suicide rate has long been among the highest of never-communist developed countries. Japan is a conformist society, and life, it is said, is bleak for those who do not fit in. It has a tradition of self-killing, which in some forms, such as the ritualised seppuku (“belly-cutting”) of the samurai, may still be deemed honourable, even noble. Public figures shamed by scandal often kill themselves.

....South Korea, too, has seen a new wave of such suicides. It, like Japan, is a country in which the young find themselves under huge pressure to succeed, and most internet pacts involve young people. Unlike Japan, however, South Korea does not have a long tradition of self-inflicted death. Two decades ago it had a fairly low suicide rate (under ten per 100,000 in the 1980s), but now it has one of the world's highest (24.7 in 2005).

...Certain differences can be readily explained. China is one of the few countries in which more women kill themselves than men. Over half the world's female suicides are Chinese; among Chinese under 45, the female rate is twice the rate among males. Why should things be different in China? Part of the explanation clearly lies in the high rate among rural women, which in turn may be partially explained by the ready availability of poisons (weedkillers and pesticides), and the absence of any effective treatment. Similar apparent anomalies may be explained by the ready availability of other poisons. Many Sri Lankans kill themselves by eating the seeds of the yellow oleander, a common shrub.

.....Measures can be taken to make it harder for people to kill themselves. ....In countries like Britain, suicide rates have fallen significantly thanks to legislation that allows drugs such as paracetamol to be sold only in small quantities. ...Some Indian states pay bereaved families compensation for the loss of a breadwinner who has killed himself; this seems to increase the suicide rate.

....Worldwide, indeed, suicide rates have increased by 60% in the past 45 years. About 1m people a year die at their own hands. Too many of these deaths are avoidable.

Have you ever thought of committing suicide? Happily I've never. And unhappily many people have thought of taking their own lives and in fact many of them have killed themselves. Suicide is an unhappy event. I am wondering what it is for when I see the articles of suicide in the newspaper.

But in my country, Japan, it seems that suicide tends to be traditionally beautified. I don't like this tendency and I think it immoral in terms of social norm and manner. Suicide gives nothing good to us. It is not taken pride in that the suicide rate in Japan has long been among the highest of never-communist developed countries.

As Emile Durkheim said, suicide rates were a key sign of the state of a community. It is right. And it is surprising that different countries have different ways of committing suicide. What is more, internet deaths are more common in today's society. Internet suicide seems to have a kind of externality and a negative effect on the society. In terms of economics, suicide is like an air pollution, which is also a great negative effect on the society and our lives and, if so, it should be prevented beforehand by some kinds of public policy.

When we make the policy to prevent it, we should think about the reason for them to take the plunge? In terms of economics, when the marginal benefit of suicide is greater than the marginal cost, they make such a final decision.

Interestingly, part of the reasons is the ready availability of poisons. If the availability of poisons induced them to kill themselves, the marginal benefit of suicide would be greater than the marginal cost and there would be room for public policy to prevent them from suicide, say, by raising the cost of taking poisons.

In fact, the suicide rates in Britain have fallen significantly thanks to legislation that allows drugs such as paracetamol to be sold only in small quantities. This public policy seems to succeed in raising the cost of taking toxic drugs and preventing them from suicide. However the public policy isn't always successful: Some Indian states pay bereaved families compensation for the loss of a breadwinner who has killed himself; This seems to raise the suicide rate. It is a interesting fact.

In this case, if a breadwinner thought more highly of the welfare of his wife and children than that of himself, he would likely commit suicide to raise his family's welfare. In other words, if he had an altruistic utility, the marginal benefit of suicide would be higher to him. This policy fails in preventing suicide but succeeds in giving him an incentive to kill himself.

There might be much discussion on whether public policy should prevent it or not before discussing how to prevent suicide. It is a normative idea whether public policy should do it. But if suicide clearly had a harmful effect on the society and the citizens' lives and the marginal benefit of preventing it were higher than the marginal cost, the policymakers should have some options to prevent it to raise the social welfare.