Unemployment, Family Ties and Suicides

Suicides are due to many factors. Psychology has been used to explain via many theories mental disorder and depression. I admit that suicides are to a great extent attributed to mental disorder. However, to the best of my knowledge there are also additional factors of non-medical nature. To make it clear I think that economic as well as social factors play a certain role. In other words, the stress of poverty (due to unemployment) and the family support (family ties) have their impact on the suicide index. It is attempted in this paper to examine econometrically the impact of unemployment and family ties on the level of suicides. Our sample covers for the period 2011-2016 the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and UK