The ecological fallacy and the gender ratio of suicide inChina

China is the only country in which the suicide rate is higher among womenthan men. We provide a demographic perspective on the gender differential insuicide in China. This shows that the male/female ratio of suicide increasedbetween 1991 and 2001 and there is reason to believe this trend willcontinu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBritish journal of psychiatry Vol. 189; no. 5; pp. 465 - 466
Main Authors Yip Paul S F, Liu, Ka Y
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Japanese
Published London Cambridge University Press 01.11.2006
Subjects
Demographics
Ecological studies
Fatalities
Gender
Males
Men
Middle age
Pesticides
Population
Psychiatry
Rural areas
Sex ratio
Suicide
Suicides & suicide attempts
Women
Young women
Hong Kong China
United Kingdom > UK
Australia
United States > US
China
India
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Summary:China is the only country in which the suicide rate is higher among womenthan men. We provide a demographic perspective on the gender differential insuicide in China. This shows that the male/female ratio of suicide increasedbetween 1991 and 2001 and there is reason to believe this trend willcontinue. Among the population subgroups, only young women living in ruralareas had much higher suicide rates than their male counterparts. It isargued that consideration of the gender ratio of suicide in China must takeage-, gender- and region-specific suicide patterns and the populationstructure into account. The increasing urbanisation of China is likely to beassociated with more male suicides and we predict that before long the malesuicide rate will overtake that of females.
ISSN:0007-1250
1472-1465
DOI:10.1192/bjp.bp.106.021816