Emil Durkheim Suicide. A Study in Sociology (1897)

How can we explain suicide? Mental disorder? Psychological distress? Personal history?

Durkheim: Suicide is regular and predictable. It cannot be explained by individual stories (the individual details dissolve in the total numbers). It is a social fact and should be explained by other social facts (exemptionalism)

Social fact Any social phenomenon that puts external constraint on individuals Widespread in a given society and independent from its individual manifestations It is because society constrains individual behavior that it is regular and predictable... and that it can be measured by statistics. Statistics is the main sociological method

Where/when is suicide most common? Men or women? Younger or elder people? Married or divorced? With children or without children? Autumn or spring? Week-ends or weekdays? Protestants or Catholics? Denmark or Italy?

Answers: Men or women? (but women try more) Younger or elder people? Married or divorced? With children or without children? Autumn or spring? Week-ends or weekdays? Protestants or Catholics? Denmark or Italy?

Rate of suicide per million people in MCP MCS MEP MES MVP MVS FCP FCS FEP FES FVP FVS M=Male; F=Female C=Celibate; E=Married; V=Widow(er) P=Province; S=Seine

Gender

Civil status

Why? Social regulation: what aligns individual desire on social goals (Anomy: dissonance between private and collective goals) Social integration: what allows society to overcome individual differences. Done according to the degree of complexity –Mechanical solidarity: society relies on equality, sameness. The ego disappears in the group. –Organic solidarity: Society relies on difference (division of labor, specialization). Big ego.

Regulation protects from suicide Economic anomy: –More suicides in times of economic crisis and booms; –More among jobless than those with jobs. –More among traders than among farmers Domestic anomy: –Married people are more protected than widowed & divorced –Married people in societies where divorce is common are less protected than where it is rare –Women are less protected than men when divorce is rare; men are less protected than women when divorce is common.

Integration of religious, domestic and political society protects from suicide Religion has a prophylactic effect upon suicide. Jews are more protected (and integrated) than Catholics who are more protected than Protestants. Married are better protected than single people Suicides decrease during revolutions and national wars Thus: Collective force/activities restrain suicide

Three (or four) types of suicides Integration –Egoistic suicide (organic solidarity) –Altruistic suicide (mechanical solidarity) Regulation –Anomic suicide (anomy) –(Fatalistic suicide) (too much regulation)

Methodological problems What is a suicide? Durkheim: when someone consciously does (or avoids doing) something that leads to his/her death –Leaves the madmen out of suicide –Includes heroic sacrifice How to record this? In official statistics: –Heroic sacrifice is usually not seen as a suicide. –The death of madmen jumping through windows are usually defined as suicide.

Can we trust statistics? No universal definition of suicide. It is therefore recorded differently in different places (cannot be compared) Medical and criminal statistics do not fit There are powerful moral reasons and material means to hide a suicide

Do the different rates reflect different ways of hiding/recording? Provincial hospitals have less qualified doctors and record less? Upper class has more interest in hiding suicide (ex: life insurance) and more means to do so? Suicide of youth more shameful and less declared? Elders have no one left to hide their cause of death? Does the rate of suicide reflect the quality of data? Is there a uniform rate of suicide everywhere and for all categories? (genetics, psychology?)

Counter-arguments Differences in medical and juridical statistics can be explained There are ways of cross-checking data through control studies Suicides are recorded through anonymous and administrative circuits. Very difficult to manipulate. Correlations are robust and found in all statistics, even after they are corrected

What to remember? “Le suicide” was a seminal book that still inspires present-day sociological studies It introduces some of Durkheim’s most important concepts (anomy, solidarity, social facts) It shows the power of statistics It raises methodological questions about definitions, data harvest and interpretation when using statistics Social criteria: age, gender, occupation, nationality, religion, number of children, civil status, income, etc.

Suicide in Denmark: Rate per inhabitants (1995)

Dødeligheden af selvmord i perioden Alder år, rater pr

References: (source of graphs) Center for selvmord forskning: For a report on suicide and unemployment, see: Note: These reports are written by psychologists who tend to downplay social factors to focus instead on psychological ones (personality, depression, existential crisis, psychological health, stress, identity, self-esteem, feeling insecure). Ex: Is unemployment a direct cause of suicide or just an indicator for psycho-social problems? They see prevention in terms of personal treatment where sociologists would focus on social and structural factors. None of these reports refer to Durkheim (!)