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Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

You may mean homicide rather than suicide: the US doesn't seem especially high in this ranking of suicide deaths -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... -- below many other rich or large countries, and not far from culturally/developmentally similar countries (like Canada/NZ/UK). The US does stick out among its usual developmental peers on the homicide rates -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... -- doubling or tripling our English-speaking or western-European peers.

Usually the way I hear this statistical point made is that the US leads the world in life expectancy when accidental injuries and violent crime are omitted. (Usually the point is deployed to caution people against making quick conclusions about US diet or medical care quality from national life expectancies, as for example here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/11/23/the-myth-of-amer...)

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That wikipedia link is interesting - almost in every single country, male suicides are much higher than female suicides, in some cases 4 to 5 times more.

Actually, female attempt rates are higher than male. There are a variety of factors that come into play but essentially females choose methods of suicide that are less effective so male rates ultimately end up higher.

I have heard it described as an attempt to get help versus actual deadly intent.

I'd hazard a guess it's due to two things, each not necessarily independent. First, males in many countries are prone to societal "honor" and may kill themselves in times of great shame (poor Indian farmers loosing everything to shady Monsanto salesmen and then drinking pesticide). And second, women are often mothers, and while a suicidal man tends to not "think of the children" women (being mothers and all) do consider the fates of their children, and likely forestall killing themselves out of compassion/concern for their offspring.

Given the shit the world generally dumps on women, I'd say the female gender is simply built of sterner emotional stuff than their male counterparts.

Plain and simple, across and countries and all historical periods, males act more dangerously. They put themselves in physically dangerous situations more often than women, and die in mid-life at a much higher rate. Male children are more likely to live until adolescence, but after their 20s their portion of the population falls back in line with that of females.

This sounds a lot like the idea former N.O.W. boardmember Warren Farrell wrote in Why Men Earn More:

that bias-based unequal pay for women is largely a myth, and that women are most often paid less than men not because they are discriminated against, but because they have made lifestyle choices that affect their ability to earn.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/0814472...

I buy that. However, we're talking about suicide, not dangerous behavior in general.

> Given the shit the world generally dumps on women,

that they actually get sympathy for, instead of being told to 'suck it up' and 'be a man' when they attempt to find help.

that they actually get sympathy for, instead of being told to 'suck it up' and 'be a man' when they attempt to find help.

This makes sense. I suppose women ask for help more, and sooner than men (and probably get it too). Does anyone know, what is the percentage of men vs women, who actually go to psychiatrists? That might give some idea

Surely the rate of death from both accidental injuries and violent crime is affected by access to emergency medical care, though? You can't disentangle the two that easily.

That's right. If trauma medicine was still at the levels of the 70's the US murder rate would be about five times higher than it is.

That quiet little phrase may be the most intriguing thing I read all year.

Looking at things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States, it implies that the US murder rate would have doubled, rather than halved.

I'd suggest it is worth a separate post.

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