THE IMPACT OF ALCOHOL, DIVORCE, AND UNEMPLOYMENT ON SUICIDE - A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

Sociologists have taken little interest in alcohol abuse as a possible antecedent of suicide. However, a theoretical link between the two ph enomena can be postulated that is consistent with Durkheim's suicide t heory. In this article, various data and methods are triangulated to s crutinize the relationship between alcohol and suicide. The control va riables include, among others, divorce and unemployment. The empirical basis comprises ecological and time-series data for Sweden. Special e fforts are made to integrate the findings with results from existent i ndividual-level studies. According to the findings, a good third of th e male suicides are attributable to the alcohol factor. The impact of unemployment is also found to be fairly strong, and here the indirect effects seem to be at least as important as the direct ones. No relati onship was found between divorce and suicide.