Yes, this is my counter-counter-criticism as well. ‘Sure, the overall China rate may be the same, but what’s the suicide rate for young, employed workers employed by a technical company with bright prospects? I’ll bet it’s lower than the overall rate...’
Agreed. Also, I think what got the suicides in China in the news was that the victim attributed the suicide specifically to some weird policy or rule the company adhered to. It could be that the “normal” suicides at the company are being ignored, and the ones being reported are the suicides on top of this, justifying that concern that this is abnormal.
This was why I went looking for stats on suicides amongst university students. I remembered some talk when I was at Cambridge of a high suicide rate, which you might see as somewhat similarly counter-intuitive to a high suicide rate for ‘young, employed workers employed by a technical company with bright prospects’.
Actually, there are a number of reasons to expect a somewhat elevated suicide rate in a relatively high pressure environment where large numbers of young people have left home for the first time and are living in close proximity to large numbers of strangers their own age. Stories about high suicide rates at elite universities tend to take a very different tack to stories about Chinese workers however.
Yes, this is my counter-counter-criticism as well. ‘Sure, the overall China rate may be the same, but what’s the suicide rate for young, employed workers employed by a technical company with bright prospects? I’ll bet it’s lower than the overall rate...’
Agreed. Also, I think what got the suicides in China in the news was that the victim attributed the suicide specifically to some weird policy or rule the company adhered to. It could be that the “normal” suicides at the company are being ignored, and the ones being reported are the suicides on top of this, justifying that concern that this is abnormal.
This was why I went looking for stats on suicides amongst university students. I remembered some talk when I was at Cambridge of a high suicide rate, which you might see as somewhat similarly counter-intuitive to a high suicide rate for ‘young, employed workers employed by a technical company with bright prospects’.
Actually, there are a number of reasons to expect a somewhat elevated suicide rate in a relatively high pressure environment where large numbers of young people have left home for the first time and are living in close proximity to large numbers of strangers their own age. Stories about high suicide rates at elite universities tend to take a very different tack to stories about Chinese workers however.