Suicide and governance: a cross-country examination

This paper examines the relationship between governance and suicide incidence. Using World Governance Indicators, we construct a governance index to estimate suicide prevalence across a panel of countries. Our findings indicate that even after controlling for country-specific economic and subjective indicators of well-being, improved governance reduces suicide rates across all age groups, except for the older adults. Gender-specific analysis reveals that only male suicide rates are responsive to governance quality. Among governance components, control of corruption plays a crucial role in reducing suicides among the working-age population, while voice and accountability show a weak but significant association with older adults’ suicides. Rule of law is associated with lower suicide rates across all age groups, except for the older adults, and applies to both genders. Our results may assist in formulating targeted suicide-prevention strategies focusing on governance and its components, which could be crucial to bring down suicide rates across countries of different income levels.