The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189: 465-466. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.106.021816
© 2006 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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SHORT REPORTS

The ecological fallacy and the gender ratio of suicide in China

PAUL S. F. YIP, PhD

Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention and Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

KA Y. LIU, MPhil

Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK

Correspondence: Paul S. F. Yip, Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 2241 6013; fax: +852 2549 7161; email: sfpyip{at}hku.hk

Declaration of interest None.

China is the only country in which the suicide rate is higher among women than men. We provide a demographic perspective on the gender differential in suicide in China. This shows that the male/female ratio of suicide increased between 1991 and 2001 and there is reason to believe this trend will continue. Among the population subgroups, only young women living in rural areas had much higher suicide rates than their male counterparts. It is argued that consideration of the gender ratio of suicide in China must take age-, gender- and region-specific suicide patterns and the population structure into account. The increasing urbanisation of China is likely to be associated with more male suicides and we predict that before long the male suicide rate will overtake that of females.




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