KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

 

This study examines the status of women suicide and policy agenda. Recently, women suicide has been significantly increased, which reached up to the highest suicide rate in the OECD countries in 2005. This can be resulted from a lack of social interest and governmental policy for female suicide prevention.

The study tried to compare the status of male suicide with that of female suicide and to analyze the causes of suicide after collecting the data on recent suicides of male and female reported by newspapers. Moreover, this study used "People Health Nutrition Survey" data conducted in 2007 and analyzed the relationship among the variables such as suicide ideation, attempted suicide, socio- demographic variables, health status, stress, and depression. Analytical methods used in this study were logistic and multi-level regression. Finally, we tried to propose the most effective policy for women's suicide prevention after interviewing scholars and experts who have studied suicide.

This study found that suicide ideation and attempted suicide rates among females turned out to be far higher than among males. Moreover, female suicide ideation and attempted suicide rates were found to be still higher than men, even after controlling the variables such as income, marital status, health and job status, stress, and depression. In addition, as women experience lower income, divorced, non-regular work, unhealthy, more depressed, and more stress, they are more likely to have suicide ideation and attempted suicide. Therefore, this study suggested effective policies to prevent female suicide ideation and attempted suicide.

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