Differences Between National Suicide Rates

Durkheim directed attention to the suicide rate seen not merely as the sum of individual acts of suicide but as the product of factors which affect the group or society as a whole. The study of suicide rates of different societies thus involves the study of their social structures and leads to inferences about the effects of differences in their cultural, social, psychological and religious composition. Such inferences are based on the assumption that differences in suicide rates are valid and not merely artefacts resulting from differing ascertainment procedures.