The impact of fiscal austerity on suicide: on the empirics of a modern Greek tragedy.
Suicide rates in Greece (and other European countries) have been on a remarkable upward trend following the global recession of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009. However, recent investigations of the impact on Greek suicide rates from the 2008 financial crisis have restricted themselves to simple descriptive or correlation analyses. Controlling for various socio-economic effects, this study presents a statistically robust model to explain the influence on realised suicidality of the application of fiscal austerity measures and variations in macroeconomic performance over the period 1968-2011. The responsiveness of suicide to levels of fiscal austerity is established as a means of providing policy guidance on the extent of suicide behaviour associated with different fiscal austerity measures. The results suggest (i) significant age and gender specificity in these effects on suicide rates and that (ii) remittances have suicide-reducing effects on the youth and female population. These empirical regularities potentially offer some guidance on the demographic targeting of suicide prevention measures and the case for 'economic' migration.
University of Portsmouth, Economics and Finance Subject Group, Portsmouth Business School, Portland Street, Richmond Building, Portsmouth PO1 3DE, United Kingdom; Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics, Institute for International Economics, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: nikolaos.antonakakis@port.ac.uk.
Nikolaos
N
Antonakakis
University of Portsmouth, Economics and Finance Subject Group, Portsmouth Business School, Portland Street, Richmond Building, Portsmouth PO1 3DE, United Kingdom.
Alan
A
Collins
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D057172:Economic Recession; D005260:Female; D005380:Financing, Government; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017059:Models, Econometric; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013405:Suicide / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
Debt crisis; Fiscal austerity; Greece; Migration; Suicide; Unemployment