Baby boomers become suicide boomers

WaPo: Baby boomers are killing themselves at an alarming rate.

[...] an alarming trend among baby boomers, whose suicide rates shot up precipitously between 1999 and 2010.

It has long held true that elderly people have higher suicide rates than the overall population. But numbers released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic spike in suicides among middle-aged people, with the highest increases among men in their 50s, whose rate went up by nearly 50 percent to 30 per 100,000; and women in their early 60s, whose rate rose by nearly 60 percent (though it is still relatively low compared with men, at 7 in 100,000). The highest rates were among white and Native American and Alaskan men. In recent years, deaths by suicide has surpassed deaths by motor vehicle crashes.

As youths, boomers had higher suicide rates than earlier generations; the confluence of that with the fact that they are now beginning to grow old, when the risk traditionally goes up, has experts worried.

It’s mostly a story about how the spoiled generation’s self-esteem ran into the buzz saw of reality. But of course Alan Greenspan makes an appearance:

Combine high expectations with a faltering economy, and the risk goes up.

“We know that what men want to do is work — that’s a very strong ethic for them,” Arbore said. “When their jobs are being threatened, they see themselves as still needing to be in that role; they feel ashamed when they’re not able to find another job, or when their home is being foreclosed on. . . . The idea that so many of us in this country have been brought up with — that you work hard, you get your house, you get your American dream, everything is rosy — it hasn’t worked out. A lot of these boomers aren’t going to earn as much money as their parents did. They aren’t going to be as secure as their parents were. And that’s quite troubling for the boomers.”

HT: IP Freely