Unmet job expectations due to labor market changes linked to suicide risk among men
Men whose job expectations were unmet due to labor market declines were at increased risk for death from suicide or drug poisoning vs. men with different job expectations, according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.
“Many men now in the high-risk age group for death from self-injury were in high school in the early 1980s and reasonably expected to go into lines of work that could support a middle-class lifestyle without a college degree,” Chandra Muller, PhD, of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues wrote. “Many of those lines of work subsequently declined with labor market changes. Adolescents form and internalize expectations about their future social roles that may serve as an ideal or benchmark for self-perceived success during adulthood.”
According to the investigators, labor market changes resulted in significant challenges to obtaining a stable, well-paying job among men without a college degree, which may have blocked pathways to fulfilling their ideals.
Muller and colleagues sought to determine whether the relative decline of working-class, subbaccalaureate occupations was linked to an increased risk for death from suicide and drug poisoning among men who anticipated having such jobs when they were in high school. In the current cohort study, they analyzed data of 11,680 men who were interviewed as part of the High School and Beyond study, which collected nationally representative data of U.S. high school sophomores and seniors in 1980 who were interviewed ever 2 years through 1986. Participants who were sophomores in 1980 were interviewed again in 1992. The investigators included in the current study those who survived to 1992 and reported occupational expectations, which were the exposure. Median participant age was 29 years in 1992, at the commencement of their future mortality analysis. Main outcomes and measures included survival or death by suicide, drug poisoning, chronic liver disease, heart disease, cancer or some other cause, according to ICD-9 and ICD-10 Revision codes.
Results showed weighted percentages for causes of death were 0.5% for suicide, 0.4% for drug poisoning, 0.2% for chronic liver disease, 1% for heart disease, 1% for cancer and 2% for other. The researchers reported subhazard ratios for death by suicide and drug poisoning were 2.91 (95% CI, 1.07-7.88) 2.62 (95% CI, 1.15-5.94) times higher, respectively, among men in 1980 who anticipated holding a subbaccalaureate occupation that later declined in labor market share vs. those with professional occupational expectations. Men’s actual jobs held did not attenuate the risk for deaths from suicide and drug poisoning.
“The findings are consistent with the possibility that occupational expectations developed in adolescence serve as a benchmark for perceptions of adult success and, when unmet, pose a risk of self-injury,” Muller and colleagues wrote.