Dr Julien Mercille addresses the lack of coverage of the the 500 suicides caused by austerity, according to a major Irish study released on the same day of the Berkeley tragedy.
Dr Mercille writes:
On Tuesday, we learned about two tragedies: one has received extensive coverage, but the other has been ignored by the Irish media.
The first tragedy is, of course, the six Irish students who died in Berkeley, California, due to the collapse of a balcony, while away in the United States for the summer.
The second tragedy is that austerity and recession have resulted in 500 deaths by suicide in Ireland between 2008 and 2012, according to a major study by a team of researchers at University College Cork released two days ago [1].
Those are “excess” suicides, i.e., suicides that happened on top of the number of suicides that would have been expected if pre-recession trends in suicide rates had continued unchanged after 2008. As I write this, the study got zero mention in the whole Irish media except for one short article in the Irish Examiner.
The study confirms that economic crisis and austerity have led to higher numbers of suicides in many countries. Previous research had looked at 54 countries in Europe and the Americas and estimated that there were 4884 excess suicides in those countries in 2009 when compared to previous years.
Another report found that over 1000 excess suicides happened in England in 2008-2010. In Spain, the economic crisis has led to an 8% increase in suicide rates. In Greece, suicides appear to have risen by more than 60% since 2007. In the United States, between 2008 and 2010, there were 4750 more suicides than expected.
The Irish study found that the bulk of the 500 excess suicides are accounted for by men (the rate of suicide for women has been little affected by the recession and austerity).
One reason is most likely the loss of men’s construction jobs in the wake of the housing bubble collapse, which has led to unemployment and mental health problems that can lead to suicide.
However, there have also been 5029 more male and 3833 more female cases of self-harm (excluding suicide) than if pre-recession trends had continued, and thus women also have felt negative consequences.
The Irish media gave us a lot of details about the students killed in Berkeley, including individual profiles, pictures, and testimonies.
But we know nothing about the 500 people who killed themselves out of desperation or for any other reason under austerity. We don’t know their names, their faces, their families, what they were doing, or the circumstances of their deaths. We don’t even know they died.
How can the difference in media attention be explained? The main reason is very simple: talking about the deaths of 500 people by suicide under austerity automatically points the finger at the governments and politicians who have implemented such a policy, in Ireland and Europe. It also points a finger at the media, which has actively supported the policy. The media has thus little interest in talking about it, just like it has little interest in documenting the negative consequences of austerity in general.
On the other hand, talking about the Irish students who died in Berkeley leads to no such accusations. It’s a tragedy, period, and therefore makes it to the front pages.
[1] Corcoran P, Griffin E, Arensman E, Fitzgerald AP, Perry IJ (2015) Impact of the economic recession and subsequent austerity on suicide and self-harm in Ireland: An interrupted time series analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology (advance access here).
@JulienMercille is lecturer at UCD and the author of The Political Economy and Media Coverage of the European Economic Crisis: The Case of Ireland (2015, Routledge). His new book, Europe’s Treasure Ireland (Palgrave), will be out in July 2015.
F3cking hell. Never miss a chance to advance your cause Julian.
+1
You can’t talk about both?
I’d have thought a bit of cop on might see us wait til after the bodies have actually been buried and the families have finished grieving before we started to do some analysis on why they were hogging the front pages. Just a common sense suggestion.
“started to do some analysis on why they were hogging the front pages”
Wow, ok. I don’t think that was his point.
People get what you are saying but you’re missing the point spectacularly
Whooosh? …nah, Concorde!
He’s spot on. Again. Berkeley deaths are a tragedy. And dinny and many others are rubbing their hands with glee.
I thought the reason suicides were not reported in the media was because of the Werther effect?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide
Generally, guidelines are you can report suicides but not how it was done.
http://www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-reporting-suicide
This presentation titled “The Impact of Media Reporting on Suicide” has a bit more information on the subject.
http://nsrf.ie/wp-content/uploads/presentations/Presentation%20Media%20event%20-%20Ella%20Arensman%2020-02-2014%20(Trends%20slide%20removed).pdf
That obviously doesn’t matter to Miscellaneous Mercille; he seems to think the public should have the right to know ‘their names, their faces, their families, what they were doing, or the circumstances of their deaths.’ And that they are dead.
No he doesn’t. He thinks it instructive the media completely ignores this report but fetishises “sexy deaths”
+1
Spot on!
Lots of whooshing in here, someone close the door
A similar effect is observed with mass killings.
But sure…..
It’s different though when you’re talking about specific individual examples, as opposed to mass statistics, the former people can very quickly visualise an image of that event and have a sympathetic reaction to it, so for someone who might be having suicidal thoughts the wide reporting of such an event might normalise it for them in a more acute way, than if you say, 500 people in a country, over a set amount of time committed suicide, it’s not as evocative.
My hunch would be a discussion on that level could help, because it would help those who might otherwise be ‘fine’, to better rationalise such thoughts, if you have an objective reason, plus the kind of social proof a national discussion can have. Secondly it would help focus attention on economics and social issues that are routinely brushed under carpet and how these things actually affect people.
Hear suicide is a very important issue to fearless leader (indeed if there’s one way to get an Irish politician to splutter with indignation on telly, it’s to suggest they don’t care about suicides, “I’ll tell you this now it’s the second thing I ask a mother after kissing her baby, well third after the vote, well fourth after the road, I’ve been to many funerals, shaken many a hand, don’t presume to tell me…” etc.), it’s why he boycotts Vincent Browne, because that crack about him going into a cupboard with a glass of whiskey and shotgun circa the failed FG coup offended him so very deeply, clearly that’s a sincere and real reason (because if fearless leader is anything, it’s sincere and real), so if someone brings this to his attention I’m sure he’ll be all over it, in true fearless leader fashion.
Whatever about austerity and suicide, the media coverage of this tragedy does reflect bias. Not our of malice but simply familiarity. Lots of journalists went to UCD, lots of them went to America on J1s. There was 18 pages on the deaths in yesterday’s Independent. Each young person was profiled. There were numerous incidents of terrible tragedies in northern Ireland that got a fraction of this coverage. I suspect if six young Travellers died in an accident it would also get less than blanket coverage. Not largely out of prejudice but because the youngsters who died so awfully this week are for the media ‘people like us’.
Absolute nonsense. That’s simply what you wish to believe.
8 youngsters died in a car crash in Donegal in 2010, they got no where near this coverage.
That’s true – but, unfortunately, young people are killed in road accidents all too frequently; the freak nature of the tragedy in Berkeley makes the deaths more newsworthy.
Surely that people die is the what makes it newsworthy? “Freakish nature” is the base manner in which it appeals to the less noble side of humanity in order to sell papers, not a yardstick of newsworthiness
nah Spagherru theres a grain of truith in what Jimmy says. .. take for example the two separate but similar cases of the finglas plumber executed during a gangland assassination of a crime figure and that of a rugby playing limerick guy who was mistakenly shot by a criminal . both reprehensible and one would think would merit the same exposure but answer me this do you remember the name of the plumber?
Ah hear, I dunno the rugby player. Poor example, but I get the point
Absolutely wrong
The evil meeja simply reports what the market seeks. If it didn’t people would stop consuming it and it would go out of business. Your comments are more of a reflection on societal prejudice.
+1
They’re a reflection on both, it’s not either/or.
Such bias that these 6 young people who died in a tragic accident got so much more coverage than the dozens of old people who die of old age every day…
Mercille the merciless. To use such a tragedy to peddle and promote your silly self is abhorrent. Shame on you and shame on BS for promoting such dross. UCD , it is time to address your standards in academia.
+1
Yes. Let’s gag him for expressing an opinion you don’t like, yet quite a number of others here think is valid.
Is he not promoting someone else’s report? Is he BS’s new Mullaly?
So you didnt see Mercille’s Book ad on the bottom?
So the one line at the end is the thing you are annoyed about? OUTRAGE! Writer in promoting book shocker!! Are you also shocked he put his twitter handle there?
Don isn’t the brightest , so most likely no.
Says Mr Dum*
*points and laughs*
I wonder who you really are on here?
Oh please… the basics…. this place runs on free contributions. In Mercille’s instance, in his posts he has ALWAYS had references to his books and twitter, etc.
That kind of share-economy agreement shouldn’t change due to a posts content. Places like this wouldn’t exist otherwise.
Can we move on
Mercile moving into POS territory now along with anyone using the suicide of others for political means.
Point of Sale?
That’s a bunch of BS, what he does is expose a lot of “home truths” that most people would rather not hear. Pretending things are not happening doesn’t make the go away.
This is something which does deserve more coverage but also more analysis. Economic crisis and austerity are not the same thing one thing led to another proponents of the latter claim it alleviated the former. Such a study is inherently hard to run as it involves forecasting the number of deaths by suicide based on previous trends over a number of years and ‘reason for suicide’ information is not usually available. Additionally it also puts as a dummy variable “there was economic crisis and/or austerity” which is a one size fits all variable when the austerity and crisis timing effects people differently. Mercantile is right that it would point the finger at government but the reason not to print may be because the arguments and sience are more nuanced than given in a “500 dead due to austerity” headline might allow.
True but suicide rates are largely stable in most Western countries, including Ireland
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=reporting+on+suicide+in+the+irish++media
Read this , dopey
http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/press/Samaritans%20Ireland%20Media%20Guidelines.pdf
ah I mean this
“One reason is most likely the loss of men’s construction jobs in the wake of the housing bubble collapse, which has led to unemployment and mental health problems that can lead to suicide.”
Mercille, have you data to support the above point.. Statistics please.
“How can the difference in media attention be explained? The main reason is very simple:” Yes Mercille, it is , different journalistic standards applied.
This post is embarrassing and not befitting of any platform , even a BS one.
suicide stats are notoriously difficult to determine. you could feasibly add in death by accidental overdose or single vehicle collisions into the mix but again, those cases may or may not be suicides.
Similarly, or maybe not, how in the name of whatever can you make a jump from “there have been more suicides” to “these suicides are as a result of the economy” to “these extra suicides are a result of austerity”.
Its barely correlation, much less causation.
Suicide is pretty complex if the people who’s job it actually is to study these things would suggest.
Simplifying in this way is wrong, dishonest and arrogant.
This piece shows lack of morals in some respects.
Increasingly I’m thinking we should ignore Mercille.
I used to like him, but now I just see biased pseudo-science and fallacy.
+1
(except for the last bit – I always felt that his analysis was a bit facile)
I used to never like you.. just sayin’.
No offence like.
“these extra suicides are a result of austerity”.
Its barely correlation, much less causation.
What were you looking for exactly, suicide letters saying it were all coz of the austerity?
Mercille was referring to a study and why, in his opinion, there wasn’t media attention paid to it. I don’t get how ‘this piece lacks morals’ exactly?.. but then again, you’re just an auld windbag who makes little sense.
Actually, scrap that.. You’re not an auld windbag..
You’re a fupping c***. That’s what you are.
“Increasingly I’m thinking we should ignore Mercille.”
We?
There’s isn’t one point to your whinge there.. Increasingly, I’m thinking I’m going back to ignoring you increasingly. I think ‘we’ should all do the same.
Medium sized pea brain
Anne, I couldn’t give a shite what you think of me.
Anne’s spot on, people are missing the point altogether. The study said it was austerity. Mercille is making connections to news stories we’ve all already heard that suicide rates among construction workers jumped in the recession, now we have it confirmed by an academic study…. I thought that was obvious
Say what you really mean Anne
But the way I totally agree.
How can someone’s opinion “lack morals”?
Profoundly dull and repetitive geebag.
Nee-naw! Moral police! Up against the wall Mercille – You just made your last fallacy!
No Clampers, we aren’t allowed to talk about suicide because 1) Julien doesn’t understand a study he may or may not have written – despite discussing other work that shows the same findings, except now that’s a moral or logical fallacy 2) he is using it for his own gain- despite this kind of thing being what academics do and 3) people just seem to hate him rather than addressing his point despite last week many comments on the events at Berkeley saying well it’s sad but it doesn’t affect me! Don’t think he can win to be honest!
In fairness how likely was a headline of “500 excess suicides due to austerity”.
What is more likely and more appropriate is a comment & debate article at the weekend that performs an in depth discussion as to the reasons behind this excess. For instance, I do not believe it’s simply a matter of young man, no job, spirals into depression. Depression is an illness, we can ALL feel depressed and have suicidal thoughts but I believe the relationship between suicide and austerity is more linked to the lack of services there for the people who were already at risk.
+500
I dunno, the powerlessness that accompanies being permanently broke can be fairly debilitating. These suicides weren’t all young people either, I’m willing to bet.
Biggest projected increase for 25-44 yr old men
These suicides weren’t all young people, you’re willing to get.
The odds on that bet, with a bit of applied common sense, wouldn’t be worth the effort
Suicide rates per 100,000 have dropped significantly since 2001 but not reported either
Yes, but that wouldn’t fit in with Mercille’s black & white narrative, or his child-like ideas about correlation and causation.
You know its not his study right? And that the link has been shown in previous work as well, except in countries which maintain strong welfare states for those out of work, where there is little effect on suicide rates.
He’s selectively using it to promote his ideas about economics.
What a creep.
Using other research to support your own is what academics do
He should have not mentioned the obsessive media coverage of the Berkeley dead kids in an article lamenting the relative lack of coverage of 500 dead Irish folks? That’s your point?
Back on this issue again, Joe? At least you’re consistent.
Don’t give other Kierans an undeserved reputation
Let it go dude
Thick and deluded, two worst qualities anyone can possess. Time that Mercille and his book were given the big boot.
Hmmm maybe.. They could bring back your wan with the cat instead.. Katie Varvos, the unemployed graduate.
She went down a treat.
Ah…. Katie, i hoped she’d make a go of it, but it was poor content, and random, although I like a bit of random
I just loved her posts for the hatred she inspired..
Explain please
500 committed suicide on the same day? No? Then **** Off, its not a story. Julien Mercille, you are an attention seeking tool.
They all need to die on the same day for you to care? He ain’t the tool
How many people died of cancer last year? Heart attacks? Why aren’t they given front page splashes?
I’m not sure what point you have. There are regularly stories about cancer and cardiac health on the front pages and how to prevent it. There are regular charity events that are covered by the papers as well.
And there are regular stories about suicide and more importantly, of events run by Pieta House and other suicide-awareness charities.
Just because it’s not front-page with a photo of the person who died by suicide, doesn’t mean the issue isn’t being reported.
The issue being an increase in suicide. Was that reported?
Eh…. suicide kills more among the core group of men aged 20-49 than cancer or coronary diseases….. what you point
I’m surprised that bs keeps on giving mercille this platform. he spouts rubbish on a weekly basis.
+1
Time for a break from BS.
Mercille should also consider if he really is intelligent enough to write and publish this crap.
the ‘practiced outrage’ is being layed on pretty thick here today ….
Everyone’s an epidemiologist these days
The man is a moron, more “acknowledgement “of this fact rather than “practiced outrage”.
Must get meeself an auld Dr title. Hey Mercille, where did you buy yours?
He “bought” it by paying fees, completing the equivalent of 3 years full-time study and defending his research in a PhD viva at the 10th best university in the US. You do that, you can have one too!
Zing!
I find continuous “mauling” of the tragic accident by non-friends and non-family of deceased appalling. Bunch of strangers keep replaying the accident in a loop (Sky or Fox news style) till the last broadcasting drop is squeezed out of this tragedy. Necrophiliacs.
Let the family bury the dead, wait till accident been investigated properly, conclusions published and then broadcast a concise story in a mature respectful way. But it ain’t gonna happen, is it?
+6
stupid is as stupid does.
Anytime I see the words ‘Dr Julien Mercille’ I know there’s going to some whiny attention seeking bollocks.
And that’s just the comments
Wonder what Fintan O Toole makes of this piece, seeing that he is the proud recipient of such worthiness on twitter.
For a man who spends so much time writing about the media, he doesn’t seem to have the slightest clue about how it works.
as for:
But we know nothing about the 500 people who killed themselves out of desperation or for any other reason under austerity. We don’t know their names, their faces, their families, what they were doing, or the circumstances of their deaths.
While he might have some sort of point about the non-reporting of a paper confirming Ireland follows exactly the same pattern as every other western country (wow, hold the front page Mercille!), this is f8cking ghoulish. We don’t HAVE to know their names or the bloody circumstances.
We don’t even know they died.
Their families do. Their friends do. People who cared about them do. Their deaths don’t need to be broadcast to the world.
That didn’t stop details of Elaine O’Hara’s death being plastered all over the papers every single day of the trial. Their families may or may not want to talk about what happened but if they do, their story should be of interest.
Murders are generally news
Suicides generally aren’t
This is how news media works.
I’m sure her family found it reassuring that people were able to read abut her abusive relationship and brutal murder in great detail over breakfast.
And that is the whole point of this piece – suicide isn’t news but it should be. There are 500 a year in Ireland, your youth rate is the fifth highest in the EU. That is worth discussing.
Oh really? So no point in exploring exactly how that gets decided?
Fatuousness breeds contempt, Mercille the merciless
That’s not really the point he’s made though even if it is poorly expressed. In your haste to belittle the man you’re making a fool of yourself by overlooking the main argument – namely that the suicide problem is not addressed due to lack of data gathering and media coverage generally. I’m not sure myself what the correct number is but a trend of this size could be within the boundary definitions for ‘epidemic’ or other statistically notable medical cohorts
http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-For-Dummies-Deborah-Rumsey/dp/0470911085
My book for Julien.
I take it you read the paper, understand Prais–Winston regressions with Cochrane–Orcutt transformations and can explain the methodology to everyone else?
I do be lovin the odd bit of Spearman’s Rho meself so I do
I be loving anyone who understands he didn’t write this paper, which seems to be just you.
the feeling’s mutual Don
Hold me Joe, hold me.
But no touching my bum
Tongues?
Yeah OK
Get a stationary room you two!
…ery!
stationery! :)
@ Clampers- don’t worry this will go nowhere
About time someone in the media addresses Mercille’s poor coverage of the media.
This Study contradicts one I saw recently which stated that there had not been a significant increase in suicide due to the downturn.
I now see why.
Its almost completely down to emphasis and a fairly ridiculous assumption that a suicide rate which reduced due to economic factors would continue to reduce during a bad recession.
Marcille is wrong (or probably, to be fair a bit misled) above when he states
“Those are “excess” suicides, i.e., suicides that happened on top of the number of suicides that would have been expected if pre-recession trends in suicide rates had continued unchanged after 2008”. no not unchanged. the report assumed they would continue to fall!!
The report made a very unlikely assumption and presented it as normal and said the gap were the economic factors
“By the end of 2012, the male suicide rate was 57% higher [+8.7 per 100 000, 95% confidence interval (CI), 4.8 to 12.5] than if the pre-recession trend continued”
“Pre-recession trend continued” in other words if the levels had continued to decline at the same levels as they had during an almost unprecedented completely unsustainable bubble between 2000 and 2007 during the following 5 economic crisis years!!
The headline figure of nearly 500 extra male deaths over 5 years is misleading.
The extra number of male suicides than if it had remained flat (also fairly unlikely during an economic crises) as Marcille had reasonably interpreted the report to mean would have been about 1/2 that level of male deaths.
“a fairly ridiculous assumption that a suicide rate which reduced due to economic factors would continue to reduce during a bad recession”
What, the hypothesis – that without the recession, suicide would have continued to drop? They chose that timeframe because it was a linear trend (something to do with method) but the rate from 2008-2012 is still higher than earlier incidence rates, so it would probably show the same thing. And they did sensitivty analsyes of the time period.
Ah here, this discussion forum is for scurrilous personal attacks and baseless claims. No place for this very valid criticism, based on actually reading it, of what appears to be a misleading academic study and a researcher too happy with its findings to analyse it correctly.
You haven’t read it either clearly as Mercille did not write this study himself.
Apologies if I wasn’t clear – what I meant was:
Mercille was so happy to find a study that agreed with his priors, he forgot to analyse the paper properly while reading it and therefore missed this obvious drawback to the analysis presented.
Thanks for raising this concern BS
Plus 500
Every time something awful happens in the world, someone on here goes on a rant about “But what about the X that died in Lybia/Iraq/Palestine/whatever their shoulder-chip-du-jour” and they get rightly lambasted for being a cock.
But because BS think Mercille is dreamy and is anti-austerity, he gets a pass.
Vomit.
Rant over?
Not getting any?
Do you know where the Five Lamps are?
this article is spot on. The suicide rate is alarmingly high and most of it caused by the despair and desolation of living under austerity , unemployment and general hopelessness. And its not just adults either but their children who are bearing the brunt of it. Theres 2 or 3 bodies pulled out of the Shannon on a weekly basis with the search and rescuer crews in Limerick on 24/7 hour call out and over a dozen volunteers on manning the suicide patrols on the briges. It wasnt like that before austerity.. and no tears for these victims from fine Gael. but then, why would they draw attention to it when their policies are causing it.