Each year, without fail, there is a story on the high rate of suicide by housewives in India. And yet more men die by suicide than women in this country—and by a magnitude. Rather than get into futile debates over who is more at risk, we look at the different reasons why Indian men and women take that irrevocable step.
Here’s the latest data on suicide in India:
The gender split: Men accounted for nearly 71% of total suicides—45,000 women died by suicide compared to more than 100,000 men.
The data: It isn’t exactly news that women are one of the most vulnerable groups in India.
The reasons offered for these appalling numbers remain almost exactly the same.
Marriage: One of the authors of the Lancet study points out that young women between the ages of 15 and 30 are most at risk. After 30, suicide rates among Indian women drops dramatically. One likely reason:
“Indian women below the age of 30 were exposed to major life changes and social pressures that come after marriage. Many lived with their in-laws in a patriarchal joint family setup and were denied basic freedom. But after 30, most women had children and [their] status in the family changed. Even though the pressures and difficulties remained the same, her attention shifted to her children. She became less suicidal.”
Point to note: Suicide rates for men remains the same irrespective of age.
Domestic violence: The most recent government survey shows that 30% of all women are victims of violence at home. And independent research suggests that one-third of Indian women who take their lives have a history of domestic violence—which is not even mentioned in government data as a cause for suicide.
Education: Greater literacy fosters greater ambitions and independence—which are soon crushed by marriage, as a clinical psychologist notes:
“She becomes a wife and a daughter-in-law and spends her entire day at home, cooking and cleaning and doing household chores. All sorts of restrictions are placed on her, she has little personal freedom and rarely has access to any money of her own. Her education and dreams no longer matter and her ambition begins to extinguish slowly, and despair and disappointment set in and the mere existence become torture."
It’s another reason why suicide rates for women are higher in southern states with higher female literacy, according to the Lancet study authors: “suicide rates in the rural, more traditional northern states could be lower because women there may have ‘less knowledge that they could actually live a better life.’”
One interesting exception: Kerala—perhaps because it is less patriarchal than other states.
Lack of community support: Ironically, the same Indian traditions that destroy women’s ambitions can also offer protection:
“[T]he researchers say that suicide rates among housewives are lowest in the most ‘traditional’ states, where family sizes are big and extended families are common. Rates are higher in states where households are closer to nuclear families—Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.”
And it’s not just families. As one Mumbai psychiatrist notes, Indian housewives form informal support groups with neighbours etc.—which disappeared during the pandemic:
“They had no other avenue to express themselves and sometimes their sanity depended on this conversation they could have with just one person… Housewives had a safe space after the menfolk would leave for work, but that disappeared during the pandemic.”
Interestingly, there is very little research on why so many Indian men die by suicide—perhaps because their deaths are viewed through the prism of their occupation not gender. For example: farmers, daily wage workers etc. But there is strong research to suggest a link between traditional gender identity and suicide.
Global research: Research published last year in JAMA showed a strong link between high traditional masculinity (HTM) and the risk of suicide. HTM encompasses a set of norms that dictate how men should behave—and include emotional restriction, aggressiveness and competitiveness.
The study coded men as HTM based on traditional male behaviours and attitudes—including being physically fit, not crying, not emotional, not moody, risk taking, fighting and liking yourself. And it found that men who scored as HTM were 2.4 times more likely to die by suicide. Researchers noted: “Further, it was associated with all the other risk factors for death by suicide, suggesting it may be an underlying risk for multiple pathways to death by suicide.”
Studies in India: suggest a similar link. A 2011 study on farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh found that at least 45% were not directly related to agrarian stress:
“Causes included the shame felt due to the farmer’s inability to marry his daughter in a well-off family, pay dowry, inability to perform sexually, etc. It further found that farmers who had failed to commit suicide were the subject of ridicule and unable to bear the ‘disgrace’, and many attempted suicide again.”
And this concern with being a ‘man’ plays out in different ways:
“Masculinity plays a role in male suicides in multiple ways, for e.g. as a barrier to acknowledgement of mental health problems and help seeking, as well as unique stressors related to being the bread-winner and the higher propensity for alcohol abuse, a key risk factor for suicide.”
Point to note: While Indian data attributes male suicides to financial stressors, that link itself is a function of traditional gender roles, as global research indicates: “When a woman becomes unemployed, it is painful, but she doesn’t feel like she’s lost her sense of identity or femininity. When a man loses his work he feels he’s not a man.” Or to put it more profoundly: “A man who can’t provide for the family is somehow not a man any more. A woman is a woman no matter what, but manhood can be lost.”
The bottomline: Perhaps we can all agree that a more equitable society is essential for the mental health of both Indian men and women.
BBC News has the latest report on the deaths of housewives, and we found its 2016 version to be equally valuable. This IndiaSpend story has data and anecdotal evidence—but not much on the actual reasons for female suicide. More useful: This NPR interview with the authors of the Lancet study. This 2017 Wire piece is the only detailed discussion we could find on Indian male suicides. A very good global read on the subject: This 2015 deep dive in Mosaic magazine.
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