The elevated male:female suicide ratio is now universal across countries, getting consistently more male-skewed, and some of the countries with the biggest increases, like Iceland and Cuba and Poland, are countries where firearm access is very low. In Poland, 90% of completed suicides are by hanging. So yes, the idea that firearm access is driving this is a parochial US notion.
We have to be careful about all these stats, though. Women tend to choose “softer” suicide methods that may get counted as non-suicides more often than unambiguous male methods of suicide. On the flip side, men may experience depression as anger, not sadness or hopelessness, and may be less open about it overall. So both male depression and female completed suicides may be systematically undercounted across countries. I’m personally more uncertain about the m:f depression ratio than the m:f suicide ratio. I think it is possible that men are both more depressed than women (40% confidence), on the basis of the suicide ratio and evidence of undercounting, and self-harm more severely than women (60% confidence), but mainly I wish we had better data.
The elevated male:female suicide ratio is now universal across countries, getting consistently more male-skewed, and some of the countries with the biggest increases, like Iceland and Cuba and Poland, are countries where firearm access is very low. In Poland, 90% of completed suicides are by hanging. So yes, the idea that firearm access is driving this is a parochial US notion.
We have to be careful about all these stats, though. Women tend to choose “softer” suicide methods that may get counted as non-suicides more often than unambiguous male methods of suicide. On the flip side, men may experience depression as anger, not sadness or hopelessness, and may be less open about it overall. So both male depression and female completed suicides may be systematically undercounted across countries. I’m personally more uncertain about the m:f depression ratio than the m:f suicide ratio. I think it is possible that men are both more depressed than women (40% confidence), on the basis of the suicide ratio and evidence of undercounting, and self-harm more severely than women (60% confidence), but mainly I wish we had better data.