The Journal of Socio-Economics 37 (2008) 1713–1723 What suicides reveal about gender bias Siddhartha Mitra ∗ , Sangeeta Shroff Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune 411004, India Received 15 November 2006; received in revised form 18 July 2007; accepted 5 October 2007 Abstract This article uses some general findings in the medical literature on suicide to suggest how male and female suicide rates in a society can be used to measure the “unfreedom” of women relative to that of men. Our definition of “unfreedom” is similar to that of Amartya Sen and consists of all kinds of suppression of mental or physical freedoms such as physical or sexual abuse, poverty, lack of economic opportunities, and so on, as well as an absence of liberty to voice complaints about the denial of the mentioned elementary freedoms. Though suicides are often associated with mental disease partially attributable to genetic factors, a mental illness is neither necessary nor sufficient for suicide. Rather a suicide is often the result of a multiple coincidence of mental disorders and repression of elementary freedoms. Given that the male and female cohorts in a society have the same genetic background, a major change in the male female ratio of suicide rates can conceivably occur only through a change in the relative incidence of unfreedoms. An application of this inference is attempted for Indian states. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Suicide rate; Empowerment; Relative wellbeing; Status 1. Introduction Suicide is a complex phenomenon which is often very difficult to comprehend. A number of studies (Durkheim, 1952; Helliwell, 2004, etc.) have probed into the causes of suicides and observed that isolation of the individual from society and lack of social capital are important factors resulting in this extreme step. Further, the suicide literature reveals that causes of suicides vary in different nations and there are large differences in the rates of suicides across countries and over time within countries. A feature that is common to various studies is the existence of significant gender differences in suicide rates, with women displaying a lower suicide rate than men. China, however, is a singular exception to this pattern with female rates exceeding male rates. Some explanations for a lower suicide rate among women is that though women suffer from depression at a higher rate than men, they are more effective in expressing their emotions whereas men suppress their feelings. Hence women are “much more likely to tell a physician how they feel and cooperate in the prescribed treatment. As a result women get better treatment for their depression (www.scienceblog.com)”. Another explanation (Steen and Mayer, 2003) is that women are more likely to hold religious beliefs and negative attitudes towards suicides. Women may also cope better than men because they are expected to successfully deal with multiple roles and they have greater support networks and are more likely to seek professional help whenever required. Finally, men generally tend to adopt violent and assured ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mitsid@yahoo.com (S. Mitra). 1053-5357/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2007.10.007