Industrialized Suicidal Tendencies : An Individual Level Study of Suicide Risk in Stockholm, 1878-1925

Sammanfattning

While economic history has a tradition of studying industrializations effects on inequality in terms of income, living standards and mortality, it has dedicated less attention to the subject of mental wellbeing. To contribute to the historical study of wellbeing, inequality and industrialization, this study uses suicide risk as a proxy for mental wellbeing. By employing a Cox proportional hazard model on a database consisting of more than 1 million individuals and 3159 suicides, the thesis was able to investigate suicide risk differentiated by social class in Stockholm, 1878-1925. The research design was guided by both classic and modern sociological theories on suicide, using key concepts such as social disintegration, disruption and dislocation to isolate variables of interest. The decision to synthesize economic historical literature with sociological theory was motivated by the latter’s established history with the subject. Results showed that even though suicide rates were differentiated by social class, rising from lowest to second highest class, suicide risk due to the theoretically identified indicators differed marginally. Chronic social dislocation through residential mobility was found to be the strongest predictor of suicide risk among all classes, a finding which was consistent and robust to competing risk. However as there likely are several confounding factors behind the finding and given the differences in rates and other covariates, the thesis concluded that the strong association between residential mobility and suicide risk should thus merit further investigation as to further ascertain inequalities in mental wellbeing.