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.
