Alarming rise in suicides by Indian men

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, August 25

Compared to women, Indian men’s vulnerability to suicides is rising at an alarming rate with married men at the highest risk, and family and health issues driving the silent epidemic.

A new study on changing patterns of suicide deaths in India, published in The Lancet Regional Health, this week, found deaths by suicide among men were twice as common as among women in 2014 (when 89,129 men died by suicide as against 42,521 women) but this rose to 2.64 times in 2021 when 1,18,979 males died by suicides against 45,026 females.

Overall, there was a 33.5% increase in suicide deaths among men in seven years as against 5.89% among women.

The analysis, based on National Crime Records Bureau data, reveals a shocking 166 % rise in suicide deaths among daily wage earners in India between 2014 (15,735 deaths) and 2021 (41,997), but a disproportionately high 170.7% rise in deaths (13,944 in 2014 and 37,751 in 2021) among male daily wagers.

“The rise in male suicide deaths is alarming. Married men are at particular risk. In 2021, married men recorded three times the suicide death rate (deaths per one lakh people) of 24.3 as against women’s 8.4. In absolute terms, 81,063 married men died by suicide in 2021 as against 28,680 married women,” Suryakant Yadav of the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, and lead author of the paper told The Tribune.

The paper shows in 2021 the SDR was the highest 24.3 for married men (81,063 deaths) followed by 13.2 (2,590 deaths) for the previously married and 12.1 (27,305) for the never married men. Family problems and health issues led suicide mortality across all years of study. “There was a 107.5 % rise in family problem being cited as the reason for suicide death among men in seven years and 58% rise for deaths in women,” Yadav explained, adding Covid-19 exacerbated the condition of daily-wagers.

Data further reveal unemployed men and women both had a high SDR of 48.2 and 27.8, respectively, in 2021 (11,724 male deaths as against 1,981 female deaths).

A disturbing outcome of the research is uniformly disproportionate rise in suicide mortality of men across all segments. While women of all ages and educational levels showed a decline in suicide deaths in seven years, men showed a rise. “Most markedly, men who studied up to classes 9 to 12 show a rise in SDR from 22.6 to 30 over seven years,” Yadav explained.