Research reportGender ratio comparisons of the suicide rates and methods in Korea, Japan, Australia, and the United States
Introduction
Although females typically have a higher rate of suicide attempts than males, their suicide mortality is lower. However, the gender ratio (male/female) of suicide rates differs greatly between countries. In Western countries it is 3–4:1, while in Eastern countries it is usually <2:1 (Yip, 1998). The gender gap may be more prominent in communities where different suicidal behaviors are expected of males and females (Canetto and Sakinofsky, 1998). It also differs according to age, even within a single country (Canetto and Sakinofsky, 1998, Kapusta et al., 2007, Kim et al., 2011, McIntosh and Jewell, 1986, Yip et al., 2000, Yip and Liu, 2006).
The lethality of the various suicide methods is an important determinant that distinguishes attempted suicide from completed suicide. Therefore, gender differences in suicide methods in each age group and in each country provide insight into the respective differential in male to female suicide rates. For example, Phillips et al. suggested that the high lethality of poisoning by pesticide, a suicide method commonly used by rural women in China, contributes to the high female suicide rate in that country (Phillips et al., 2002).
Gender differences in suicide methods were previously studied in several countries (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2007, Chen et al., 2009, Im et al., 2011, Kim et al., 2011, Varnik et al., 2008), but the association between gender ratios of suicide rates and suicide methods in different countries and in different age groups has yet to be examined. In the present study, we asked whether age-specific gender ratios of suicide rates differed between Eastern and Western countries, based on data from South Korea and Japan and from Australia and the United States, respectively. We hypothesized that differences in the pattern of suicide methods are related to the differences in male vs. female suicide rates between countries. Accordingly, age- and gender-specific suicide methods were also evaluated in the four countries.
Section snippets
Methods
The most recently available officially published electronic mortality data for South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the United States were obtained from the Korean National Statistical Office, the Statistics Bureau and the Director-General for Policy Planning of Japan, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the National Center for Health Statistics of the United States: the data were as recent as 2009 for South Korea, Japan, and Australia, and 2008 for the United States. For the purposes of
Results
Age-standardized suicide rates for the four countries are illustrated in Fig. 1. South Korea had the highest suicide rate (31.0 per population of 100,000) and Australia the lowest (9.7 per population of 100,000). For all four countries, the suicide rates of males were higher than those of females. The gender ratio (male:female) of suicide rates was 3.9 for America, 3.3 for Australia, 2.7 for Japan, and 1.8 for South Korea.
Discussion
Consistent with the results of previous studies (Yip, 1998), we found that the gender ratio of suicide rates was lower in Eastern than in Western countries. Our hypothesis, that differences in suicide methods are reflected in differences in the gender ratios of suicide rates between countries, is supported by the findings of the present study: (1) the gender ratio of suicide rates was higher in the United States and Australia, where gender differences in suicide methods were more prominent than
Role of funding source
This work was supported by The Korean Association for Suicide Prevention. Neither had a further role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
None of the authors had any conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by The Korean Association for Suicide Prevention.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.