Middle-aged men from disadvantaged backgrounds are 10 times more likely to commit suicide, often because they have lost a sense of identity and masculine pride, researchers said on Thursday.
In a report commissioned by the British helpline charity the Samaritans, health experts explored why men in their 30s, 40s and 50s are at such a substantially higher risk of ending their own lives.
The findings suggest suicide is not simply a mental health problem, the researchers said, but also one of men’s place in societies and of societies’ inability to adapt to men’s needs when trying to deal with depression, anxiety and other problems. “While suicide is mental health issue.... It is also a social and health inequality issue,” said Stephen Platt, a University of Edinburgh health policy research professor and trustee for the Samaritans, who presented the report at a briefing in London “The differences we are highlighting in this report.. Are not ones that any civilised society should be comfortable with.”
While the report focused on Britain, the experts behind its findings were relevant to many developed countries across the world, especially those that have experienced a post-industrial shift to service-driven economies.
It said that men in mid-life are part of a “buffer” generation, not sure whether to be like their older, more traditional, silent, austere fathers or like their younger, more progressive, individualistic sons. — Reuters