Poster #135 - Characteristics of and Variation in Suicide Mortality Related to Retirement During the Great Recession

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Background and Purpose.

Suicide rates typically increase among middle-aged adults during recessions. However, few studies have explored how recessions affect older adults nearing retirement. Psychological and sociological theories suggest that retirement is a period of elevated risk for suicide because of psychosocial consequences of the transition (e.g., loss of social role or networks). During the Great Recession (GR), older adults experienced several retirement-related (RR) financial challenges, including earlier-than-anticipated exits from the workforce and losses to retirement savings accounts. This study aims to quantify RR suicide mortality during the GR and analyze its variation over time.

Methods

To that end, we leverage quantitative and qualitative data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), the largest suicide mortality registry in the United States, to characterize suicide related to retirement. We employ techniques from natural language processing (NLP) to identify cases of suicide that are RR, that is, some aspects of the retirement transition are explicitly described in the decedents’ text narrative data, as opposed to simply relying on the decedents’ labor-force status of “retired.” We then (a) describe how RR cases differ from suicide deaths among “retired” persons in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and (b) examine how the risk of suicide, both among RR and among “retired” persons and among older adults in general, varied from 2004 to 2017, a period that spans the GR. Finally, we annotate the narratives of RR cases and use network analysis to explore and visualize the themes represented in these texts that are linked to retirement (e.g., health problems precipitating early retirement, financial problems following retirement). We hypothesized that cases of RR suicide would be more common, and that the rate of RR suicide would be correlated with macroeconomic indicators (e.g., unemployment rate), during the GR as compared to prior periods.

Results.

There were 878 RR cases (1.6% of suicides aged ≥50) identified by the NLP model; only 52% of these cases were among retirees. RR cases were younger (62 vs 75 years) and more educated (41.5% vs 24.5% college degree) than retirees. The rate of RR suicide was positively associated with (R2 = 0.70) and Granger causes (p = 0.024) indicators of the GR like short-term unemployment, but economic indicators were not correlated with the suicide rate among retirees or older adults in general. Economic issues were more frequent in the narratives of RR cases during the GR compared to other periods, while psychosocial issues were more frequent outside the GR. Network analysis shows that economic issues are more central to the complex system of issues surrounding retirement during the GR.

Conclusion.

Recessions shape suicide risk related to retirement transitions, including rates of suicide and . Collectively, this analysis calls for interdisciplinary research that draws on insights from psychology and gerontology, as well as economics, human resources, and business administration, to develop policies and programs that address the links between psychosocial, health, and socioeconomic factors identified in this study.

Author

• Aparna Ananthasubramaniam, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author