Suicide, alcohol, and divorce; aspects of gender and family integration.

Both over time and between countries within our cultural domain there seems to be a persistent male predominance in the suicide rate. Based on Durkheim's theory of social integration as a key issue in egoistic suicide, the present study aimed at analyzing two empirically operational aspects of social disintegrative factors on the male and female suicide rates in Norway; namely alcohol consumption and divorce. Times series analyses on differenced data from 1911 to 1990 showed that both alcohol consumption and divorce were independently and statistically significantly associated with the male suicide rate, but not with the female suicide rate. The results are discussed on basis of gender roles and social integration.