Paper Notes
Case and Deaton (2021)
the suicide rate itself, which rose by 36 percent from 1999 to 2019 among those aged 25-74 (age-adjusted). It is
currently at its highest level since 1938, United States Congress Joint Economic Committee (2019), and its continued rise in the US stands in contrast to other countries as well as to the world as a whole, where suicide rates have been falling since 2000, Ritchie et al. (2021). Contrary to what was long believed, suicide rates in the US are higher among those with less education. While the age-adjusted suicide rate almost doubled from 1992 to 2019 among WNHs ages 25–74 without a BA, increasing from 17.6 to 31.1 per 100,000, there was almost no increase among those with the degree. Suicide rates were declining between 1990 and 2010 for less-educated Hispanics and BNHs, but rates began to rise after 2010, increasing from 7 to 10 per 100,000 (age-adjusted 25-74) between 2010 and 2019.
- Why are suicide rates so much higher for whites than for black and hispanics?
- Why was suicide so high in 1938?
Case et al (2020) find, in both NHIS and Gallup data for the US, but not
in data from Europe, that pain is lower among the elderly than among those in midlife when viewed in any given year, a biological improbability that is resolved by examining successive birth cohorts to show that those currently in midlife in the US have had higher pain levels throughout their lives than did the now elderly.
- It is also improbable that the younger generation, with less blue-collar work, really hurts more. Must just be perception.
