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Suicide in Happy Places: Is There Really a Paradox?

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Abstract

In 2011 researchers published a paper that exposed a puzzling paradox: the happiest states in the U.S. also tend to have the highest suicide rates. In the current study, we re-examine this relationship by combining data from the Multiple Mortality Cause-of-Death Records, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the American Communities Survey to determine how subjective well-being and suicide are related across 1563 U.S. counties. We extend the original study in important ways: by incorporating both absolute and relative measures of subjective well-being; by examining the happiness-suicide association at a more suitable level of analysis; and by including a more robust set of control variables in the model. Contrary to the previous study, we do not observe any significant relationship, negative or positive, between the absolute and relative well-being of places and suicide rates at the county-level. Implications for the study of suicide rates and relative deprivation are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder, UCB 327, Ketchum 195, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Philip M. Pendergast & Tim Wadsworth

  2. Criminology, Law and Society, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Charis E. Kubrin

Authors
  1. Philip M. Pendergast
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  2. Tim Wadsworth
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  3. Charis E. Kubrin
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Correspondence to Philip M. Pendergast.

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Pendergast, P.M., Wadsworth, T. & Kubrin, C.E. Suicide in Happy Places: Is There Really a Paradox?. J Happiness Stud 20, 81–99 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9938-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9938-y

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