Date of Award
2009
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Colby Access Only)
Department
Colby College. Economics Dept.
Advisor(s)
Philip H. Brown
Second Advisor
Andreas Waldkirch
Abstract
This study estimates the effects of religious participation and permanent income on the probability of committing suicide. There is a scarcity of micro-level studies examining the effect of income and religion on the probability of committing suicide and they tend to suffer from methodological problems. Using data from the 1993 National mortality Followback survey and the 1990 US Census, and cont.rolling for age, race, gender, level of education, urban residence, and marital status, a statistically-significant negative relationship between religions participation and the probability of committing suicide is demonstrated. The estimated effect of income is statistically significant and positive indicating that better-remunerated individuals are likelier to die of suicide than of other causes. The results are robust to including other controls, including region of residence, mental health problems. alcohol and drug abuse, and healthcare access, as well as to alternative specifications of the dependent variable.
Keywords
religious participation, permanent income, suicide
Recommended Citation
Balbuzanov, Ivan, "The Effect of Religious Participation and Permanent Income on Suicide Risk: Micro--Level Analysis" (2009). Honors Theses. Paper 356.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/356
Copyright
Colby College theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed or downloaded from this site for the purposes of research and scholarship. Reproduction or distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the author.
Comments
Full-text download restricted to Colby College campus only.