_1.webp)
It’s World Suicide Prevention Day today – it should be every day.
Here are ten key facts with respect to male suicide in the UK:
- It’s World Suicide Prevention Day today – for so many families, the worst part of the year but one that is vital with such a national crisis. For men and women.
- Here are ten key facts with respect to male suicide in the UK.
- More men under 50 die in the UK due to suicide than any other reason.
- 14 men every day die by suicide in the UK.
- 74% (three in four) of all suicides are male.
- Three times as many men die by suicide every year than die in a vehicle accident.
- The suicide rate (2023) in England is the highest this century.
- Over 90,000 men (by 2023) in England and Wales have died by suicide this century – enough to fill Wembley Stadium.
- Scotland (2023) has the highest male suicide rate (22.6 per 100,000) and England the lowest (17.1 per 100,00).
- North East England’s (2023) male suicide rate (24 per 100,000) is twice as high than in London (11.7 per 100,000).
- In England and Wales (2023), whilst men aged 45-49 have the highest suicide rates (25.5 per 100,000), sadly 149 male teenagers aged 15-19 died by suicide too (8.1 per 100,000) – the third highest rate this century for that age group.
- For every five male deaths for men in employment, three will be in “blue-collar” roles and two in “white collar” roles. Read here for analysis.
A key part of CPRMB’s response to the consultation on a Men’s Health Strategy was to have national and local targets for reducing male suicides – alongside national and local suicide prevention strategies that took a gender-sensitive lens to men in all their different settings – including race, place, class, age and work.
This means that there is not just a focus on “middle-aged men” which has been the norm – but more needs to be done for younger and older men and also men in and from different communities - and different occupations too.
For a ‘primer’ on the causes of male suicide in the UK, a good starting point is this 2022 report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Issues Affecting Men and Boys.
This focused on the fact that men viewed suicide as a “rational” solution to life events they could no longer solve – they did not view suicide as a clinical/mental health problem – they viewed it as a life problem.
The main causes were seen as:
This focused on the fact that men viewed suicide as a “rational” solution to life events they could no longer solve – they did not view suicide as a clinical/mental health problem – they viewed it as a life problem.
The main causes were seen as:
- External factors (often referred to as stressors, antecedents or risk factors)
- Relationship breakdown- separation, divorce, family court disputes, child contact, isolation and domestic abuse
- Financial concerns/pressures
- Employment/Work/Unemployment (including workplace culture, stress, bullying, redundancy, burnout, too old or injured to continue with “blue collar” work)
- Housing/Homelessness
- Bereavement
- Health and Addictions
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
- Infertility
2. Universal issues that affect most or all men who take their own life. This sits across the stressors.
- Loss of meaning and purpose (worthless, hopeless, useless)
- Feeling of failure as a man
- Loss of hope / Despondency
- Loss of social connection / Isolation
- Loneliness
- Place and Community
- Occupation
- Institutional Discrimination (Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender)
- Cultural barriers
- Lack of formal support service response, awareness , affordability and availability
3. Transitions, often unwelcome, in a man’s life can act as the tipping point into suicidality.
- Loss of work (and no alternatives)
- Loss of family
- Loss of child contact
- Loss of relationship
- Loss of home/homelessness
- Entry into the criminal justice system
- Disability and sudden ill-health
- Bereavement
- Sexuality
- Moving to university/college
- Armed forces to civilian life
