Economics of suicide in Sweden

Sammanfattning: Suicide is social tragedy that devastates families and is very costly for society. Even though suicide have been a known social problem for over a century society have yet to solve it. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether the socio-economic theory can explain the variance of suicide rate in Sweden. From previous studies and socioeconomic theories, the variables unemployment, divorce rate, fertility was picked because of their ability to explain the variance of suicides rates. Population density was also picked because of its close relation with social isolation. A two-way fixed- effect model controlling for region and time was employed on a panel of 21 counties over the years 2005-2017. The results of the regression were that all independent variables, but population density were insignificant. The study concludes that the panel employed are not enough to determine whether the socio-economic factors can explain the variance of suicide rates in Sweden.