When Unemployment Leads to Suicide (France)

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When Unemployment Leads to Suicide (France)

Translated

Shame, isolation, social condemnation: the psychological helplessness caused by unemployment may become intolerable: this aspect is emphasized by several studies.

So few figures, so few studies, a form of deep-rooted taboo. An obvious fact yet: unemployment wears people out, kills some of them, and the very perspective of unemployment for people having a job may lead some of them to commit suicide. In his book La Violence du Chômage (The violence of unemployment, published in 2002), Christian de Montlibert, a sociologist and a member of the association "Raisons d'agir" ("Reasons to act", created by a group of researchers willing to unite research and action), points out the effects of the arrival of a psychological confusion caused by shame and isolation or by social condemnation as well: ?There are more unemployed people, he remarked, than a group of persons of the same age and same skills who have insomnia (19 VS. 5), who feel under pressure (23 VS. 11), who are depressed (34 VS. 9) and who lose their self-confidence (20 VS. 4).

In one of the rare studies devoted to this issue and published in April 1998: Suicide and social ill-being. Alfred Nizard, a researcher at the Institut national des études démographiques (National Institute of Demographical Studies) stated that unemployment, lack of job security, the absence or a low level of income or its downsizing have contributed to the loosening of family ties and to a moral or physical isolation of individuals, therefore, unemployment reveals the difficulties of life that go hand in hand with a higher number of suicides.

In another study, Louis Chauvel, a sociologist who specialized in the study of generations, points out the increase of the number of suicides and the problems of French society after the period of economic growth 1945-1975. Unemployment, or even underemployment, is undoubtedly a reason for the high rate of suicides in the middle of life, he said. The rate of suicides among unemployed people around 40 is about 100 per 100,000. The peak of suicides of people under 70 can now be found around 45, at the age when, for the most jeopardized population, it is time to assess a failure in life, without any perspective of renewal, when chances to access another life, for instance with a decent pension, seem really far away or simply doubtful, because of a lack of enough years of contributions. (...)

And yet, we must grasp these links very carefully: it is tempting to embrace the simplistic idea of an "economic" suicide, and to reduce its causes to unemployment or to economic difficulties alone, in another words, to the most material aspects of the crisis. It would be a mistake about the explanation of the fact. Even if these are undeniable factors of variation in the suicide risk, all the unemployed people of mature years do not commit suicide, and all the people who killed themselves are not unemployed or destitute. In a time of unemployment growth, the risks of suicide are also greater for those who are not concerned.

From the point of view of prevention, the focus on suicides linked to the working conditions and unemployment is quite recent. Violence that massively entered companies particularly affects adults, whose suicide rate now stagnates, explained in 2002 Michel Debout, the President of the UNPS (National union for suicide prevention).

Redundancy schemes strengthen the feeling of abandonment and lack of work security that is felt by some people who are laid off. Despair may, in certain extreme cases, leads to suicide. There are very few official figures, but the problem is real. A complete black-out is observed by companies about this issue. Most of the time, companies try to put the blame on exterior reasons, especially on family problems. But exclusion from work may be sufficient. Dismissed from a community where they have given a lot of themselves for many years, these employees eventually feel expelled from the human world as well and turn their violence on themselves.

http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/news/output/society_1074200538.shtml

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