There have been a number of studies that demonstrate men are more likely to successfully suicide than women, for the reasons stated. This holds true across cultures.

Suicide Rates (per 100,000), by country, year, and gender.


Suicide rates vary significantly based on factors that include cultural influences. (Reporting of rates also varies significantly by culture.) The study linked to below does a pretty good job of laying out the caveats regarding the data, while also having enough data and statistical tools to draw some reasonable conclusions.

Global Suicides Among Young People age 15-19.

Families have within them their own cultures around many things, including suicide. In addition to what others have said, I sometimes wonder, when there is a multigenerational history of suicide within a family, if one possible element, within some families, is that suicide, once one person has suicided, it becomes more "thinkable" than it might have otherwise, depending on how the extended family deals with or makes meaning of the legacy.

There is no question that depression and severe and persistent mental illness have a genetic component. Fact is, most families with a strong family history of the above do not have a strong family history of suicide. Genetics may certainly play a role, but many other social factors probably come to bear.

The ease with which information is spread and therefore unintentionally normalized today also, at least in my very personal and unsubstantiated by research opinion, contributes to higher rates of teen suicide and of teen suicide pacts that get carried out - Probably for the same reason that wide and immediate distribution of the news on Columbine continues to contribute to "copycat" attempts, some successful and some not. Copycat is in quotes because my intent is not to minimalize the phenomena.

If I had time in my life, I might be interested in going back and comparing social statistics and/or extrapolating what I can from essays and the historical record from the period of the industrial revolution, especially from about 1860 to 1914, to the current era, say...1980 to date. Then I would go back and read Durkheim again, especially regarding suicide and anomie. Not because I think suicide, teen or otherwise, is primarily determined by social conditions, but because I think the protective factors that enable people to deal with the inevitable suffering of life most often stem from a combination of psychological and social factors. Media -news and social networking- reports without clear context or unambiguous cultural/social judgement.

The desire for attention, empathy, understanding is strong within all of us.

One socially protective factor, as coercive as it may be, is a strong social and cultural prohibition against suicide, one that condemns suicide, making it both shameful and incomprehensible. I'm not advocating that, or taking any position. I'm just sayin'....

Life, individually and collectively, is complicated.