IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v11y2002i8p695-708.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A theoretical model of adolescent suicide and some evidence from US data

Author

Listed:
  • Vijay K. Mathur
  • Donald G. Freeman

Abstract

Suicide rates for adolescents have doubled since 1970 and tripled since 1960, even as rates for other age groups have declined. Using a Becker‐type model of household production and consumption, we demonstrate conditions under which utility maximizing parents allocate time away from time‐intensive commodities like children's well‐being, and towards market work and less time‐intensive consumption commodities. This reallocation of time towards market work has mixed effects on children' mental health: higher money income tends to improve family and children's well‐being, but the loss of parental time has an opposite effect on children's mental health and increases the risk of adolescent suicide. Empirical evidence using state panel regressions of adolescent suicide rates on economic, social and demographic variables is consistent with predictions based on our model; our results indicate that the favorable effect of higher incomes has more than offset the negative effect of lost parental time. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Vijay K. Mathur & Donald G. Freeman, 2002. "A theoretical model of adolescent suicide and some evidence from US data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(8), pages 695-708, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:11:y:2002:i:8:p:695-708
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.704
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.704
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.704?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David S. Salkever, 1982. "Children's Health Problems: Implications for Parental Labor Supply and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 221-252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Juster, F Thomas & Stafford, Frank P, 1991. "The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 471-522, June.
    3. Mark R. Rosenzweig & T. Paul Schultz, 1982. "The Behavior of Mothers as Inputs to Child Health: The Determinants of Birth Weight, Gestation, and Rate of Fetal Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 53-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-1475, September.
    5. Dennis Ahlburg & Morton Schapiro, 1984. "Socioeconomic ramifications of changing cohort size: an analysis of U.S. postwar suicide rates by age and sex," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 21(1), pages 97-108, February.
    6. Stafford, Frank P, 1987. "Women's Work, Sibling Competition, and Children's School Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 972-980, December.
    7. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Soss, Neal M, 1974. "An Economic Theory of Suicide," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 83-98, Jan.-Feb..
    8. Fuchs, Victor R. (ed.), 1982. "Economic Aspects of Health," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226267852, December.
    9. Folbre, Nancy, 1994. "Children as Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 86-90, May.
    10. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    11. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kyle D. Buck & J. Kevin Summers & Lisa M. Smith & Linda C. Harwell, 2018. "Application of the Human Well-Being Index to Sensitive Population Divisions: a Children’s Well-Being Index Development," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(4), pages 1249-1280, August.
    2. Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski & Brendan John Lambe & Keshab Shrestha, 2020. "Do Stock Market Fluctuations Affect Suicide Rates?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(4), pages 737-765, December.
    3. Best, Paul & Manktelow, Roger & Taylor, Brian, 2014. "Online communication, social media and adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 27-36.
    4. Rosa Duarte & Jos� Juli�n Escario & Jos� Alberto Molina, 2013. "Socio-demographic determinants of planning suicide and marijuana use among youths: are these patterns of behaviour causally related?," Documentos de Trabajo dt2013-03, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Zaragoza.
    5. Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2013. "A study on the socio-economic determinants of suicide: Evidence from 13 European OECD countries," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 78-85.
    6. Jahyeong Koo & W. Michael Cox, 2008. "An Economic Interpretation Of Suicide Cycles In Japan," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(1), pages 162-174, January.
    7. Yochay Nadan & Avital Kaye-Tzadok, 2019. "The Virtual Arena: A Call for a New Domain of Child Subjective Well-Being," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(2), pages 461-477, April.
    8. Sok Chul Hong & Jungmin Lee, 2015. "People on the verge of death: evidence from impacts of celebrity suicides," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(7), pages 710-724, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Troske, Kenneth R. & Voicu, Alexandru, 2010. "Joint estimation of sequential labor force participation and fertility decisions using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 150-169, January.
    2. Elisabetta Lazzaro & Carlofilippo Frateschi, 2017. "Couples’ arts participation: assessing individual and joint time use," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(1), pages 47-69, February.
    3. Michael Lokshin & Sergiy Radyakin, 2012. "Month of Birth and Children’s Health in India," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 174-203.
    4. Chiuri, Maria Concetta, 2000. "Individual decisions and household demand for consumption and leisure," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 277-324, September.
    5. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2004. "Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    6. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2008. "Maternal employment and adolescent development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 958-983, October.
    7. Julian P. Cristia, 2006. "The Effect of a First Child on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Women Seeking Fertility Services: Working Paper 2006-11," Working Papers 18233, Congressional Budget Office.
    8. Joyce, Theodore J. & Grossman, Michael & Goldman, Fred, 1989. "An assessment of the benefits of air pollution control: The case of infant health," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 32-51, January.
    9. Henrekson, Magnus & Dreber, Anna, 2004. "Female Career Success: Institutions, Path Dependence and Psychology," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 574, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 25 Jan 2007.
    10. Huffman Wallace E. & Huffman Sonya K & Rickertsen Kyrre & Tegene Abebayehu, 2010. "Over-Nutrition and Changing Health Status in High Income Countries," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-44, June.
    11. Chen, Yanni & Huffman, Wallace E., 2009. "An Economic Analysis of the Impact of Food Prices and Other Factors on Adult Lifestyles: Choices of Physical Activity and Healthy Weight," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49291, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Paula C. Pereda & Tatiane A. de Menezes & Denisard Alves, 2014. "Climate Change Impacts on Birth Outcomes in Brazil," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 84775, Inter-American Development Bank.
    13. Phyllis Mumia Machio, 2018. "Determinants of Neonatal and Under-five Mortality in Kenya: Do Antenatal and Skilled Delivery Care Services Matter?," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 20(1), pages 59-67.
    14. Laura Rodríguez, 2022. "Violence and newborn health: Estimates for Colombia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 112-136, January.
    15. Braha, Kushtrim & Cupák, Andrej & Pokrivčák, Ján & Qineti, Artan & Rizov, Marian, 2017. "Economic analysis of the link between diet quality and health: Evidence from Kosovo," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 27(PA), pages 261-274.
    16. Lefebvre, Pierre, 2006. "Le gradient santé / revenu familial des nouveau-nés québécois de 1998 après quatre ans : faible ou inexistant?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(4), pages 523-595, décembre.
    17. Doyle, Orla & Fitzpatrick, Nick & Lovett, Judy & Rawdon, Caroline, 2015. "Early intervention and child physical health: Evidence from a Dublin-based randomized controlled trial," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 224-245.
    18. Sonya K. Huffman & Marian Rizov, 2007. "The Rise of Obesity in Transition Economies: Theory and Evidence from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey," LICOS Discussion Papers 18507, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    19. Troske, Kenneth & Voicu, Alexandru, 2009. "The Effect of Children on the Level of Labor Market Involvement of Married Women: What is the Role of Education?," IZA Discussion Papers 4074, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Gábor Kertesi & Gábor Kézdi, 2016. "On the test score gap between Roma and non-Roma students in Hungary and its potential causes," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(1), pages 135-162, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:11:y:2002:i:8:p:695-708. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.