Suicide and unemployment: a panel analysis of Canadian provinces

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between suicide and unemployment. We use panel data from Canadian provinces and use recent panel econometric techniques to account for endogenous structural breaks in both the unit root and cointegration testing procedures in order to account for statistical specification issues. We find that the relationship between unemployment and suicide is context dependent. We do find positive and statistically significant relationships, but only for males in particular provinces. The relationship between unemployment and suicide is not monolithic. Rather, relationships are not always as expected for different demographic groups and all places.