Engaging in family care work prevents risk of suicide in men

New York: While suicide rates are generally higher in men than in women, but those who indulge in family care work are less vulnerable to take their lives, according to a new study.

The study, led by Colorado State University researchers, found that that men’s suicide mortality is related to their private-life behaviours, specifically their low engagement in family care work — not just the adversities they may encounter in aspects of their public lives, such as employment.

Men tend to over invest in the role of an economic-provider, and under invest in family care work — a pattern that leaves them vulnerable when economic-provider work is threatened or lost, according to Silvia Sara Canetto Canetto, Professor of Psychology at the varsity. In the study, family caregiving was defined as, for example, providing personal care or education for a child, and/or providing care for a dependent adult.

The researchers examined suicide, male family caregiving, and unemployment in 20 countries, including the US, Austria, Belgium, Canada and Japan.

Suicide rates were found to be lower in countries where men reported more family care work, showed the study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

In countries where men reported more such care work, higher unemployment rates were not associated with higher suicide rates in men. By contrast, in countries where men reported less family care work, higher unemployment rates were associated with elevated male suicide rates.