printSuicide rates are declining everywhere except for the big exception: America, where it is 12.8 per 100,000, “well above China’s current rate of seven.”
And, in particular, among white Americans and native Americans.
“There are parallels between the rise in suicide in post-Soviet Russia and the ‘deaths of despair’ in America identified by Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton University,” observes The Economist.
Suicide rates among white Americans are higher, and have risen faster since 2000, than among any other group except native Americans (see chart). The same trend can be seen among the middle-aged. At the turn of the century, older people were much more likely to kill themselves than those in their 50s, but that is no longer true. Rates among people in rural areas are higher, and have been increasing faster, than those among people in towns and cities.
The Economist is slightly more candid than the likes of the neocons and lite libertarians mentioned in the post, “Immigration: A Look-Away Issue For Neocons & Lite Libertarians“:
For working-class misery, neoconservatives and lite libertarians [economic reductionist all] blame everything BUT mass immigration, diversity, loss of community and sense of place. Anything but the truth …
MORE: “Defeating despair: Suicide is declining almost everywhere …”