Social Cohesion and Suicide: Testing Durkheim's conjecture

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This thesis investigates the relationship between suicide rates and social cohesion at a cross-country level. Social cohesion is defined as heterogeneity in preferences and measured as the standard deviation in multiple choice questions from the World Value Survey. Higher heterogeneity in preferences leads to a higher standard deviation which indicates a lower level of social cohesion. According to Durkheim, there is a U-shaped relationship between suicide rates and social cohesion. Consequently, suicide rates increase with both high and low levels of social cohesion. In order to test for this, I use both a linear and non-linear model with three specifications each for regression analysis. Control variables are gdp per capita, fraction of the population over the age of 65, unemployment rate, fertility rate and the Gini coefficient. Data for males and females are examined separately. The linear model seems to fit the dat...