Education and Risk of Suicide: An Analysis of African Americans

The effect of education level on suicide risk among African Americans is a neglected subject. Gains in educational attainment for African Americans over the last three decades have not resulted in corresponding gains in economic success, a situation that can promote anomic suicide. Observers of African American suicide have also argued that middle-class aspirants tend to have weak communal ties or low social integration. A logistic regression analysis of recently released, national individual-level data for 1989 finds that for every year of education the odds of suicide among African American males increase 8 percent. In contrast, for white males each year of education lowers the odds of suicide by 2 percent. For African Americans, the structural imbalance between educational means and economic ends is associated with a positive link between education and suicide.