Female Suicide and the Concept of the Midlife Crisis

No 10759, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The idea that humans – especially females – are prone to some form of 'midlife crisis' has typically been viewed with extreme skepticism by social scientists. We point out the potential equivalence between an age U-shape in a new well-being literature and a matching hill-shape in especially female suicide risk (evident in 28 countries and visible in the United States even 30 years ago). This concordance between two currently separate kinds of evidence, including a result on non-human primates, is apparently not known to many researchers or public commentators. It may be necessary to reconsider traditional thinking on the midlife crisis.

Keywords: happiness; aging; suicide; well-being; GHQ; mental-health; depression; life-course (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hea and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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