Financial Debt and Suicide in Hong Kong SAR 1 P S. F. Y, 2 K C. T. Y, B Y. T. I,  Y. W. L Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention University of Hong Kong Pokfulam, Hong Kong R W Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia The presence of indebtedness is known to be a risk factor that can trigger stressed persons to contemplate suicide. This study compares the profiles of suicides with and without debt problems based on 2002 Coroner’s Court death files. The category of men aged 25–39 has seen a 70% increase in suicide rate since 1997, and the number using carbon monoxide poisoning has increased from 1% of the total deaths in 1997 to about 26% of the total deaths in 2002. Suicides associated with debt problems seem to involve fewer mental and physical problems with formal job attachment than do suicides without debt problems. Gambling is a significant contributing factor to unmanageable indebtedness. Hong Kong’s suicide rate increased dramatically from 12.1 per 100,000 people in 1997 to 18.6 per 100,000 in 2003. This rate is at a historic high, and the increasing trend is troubling. Middle-aged people have experienced the most dramatic increase over this period, with the proportion of indebtedness among suicide deaths increasing from 15% to nearly 50% over the decade. Hong Kong was severely affected by the Asian financial crisis since the sovereignty handover in 1997. The unemployment rate reached a historic high of 7.6%, and there were 25,620 documented orders by the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) for compulsory winding-up 3 of business and bankruptcy in 2002 (HKSAR, 2004). According to the Official Receiver’s Office of the HKSAR, that figure was about 22.4 times higher than the 1997 statistic. 1 The authors thank the Coroners’ Court for providing data on suicide deaths for the present study. This research was supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Fund and the Chief Executive Community Project. 2 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paul S. F. Yip, Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China. E-mail: sfpyip@hku.hk 3 A party is deemed to compulsory winding-up in any following scenarios: inability to pay its debts; a special resolution is passed for its winding-up by the Court; or the Court considers that it is just and equitable to have it wound-up. 2788 Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2007, 37, 12, pp. 2788–2799. © 2007 Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.