Suicide: a 15-year review of the sociological literature. Part II: modernization and social integration perspectives

Suicide Life Threat Behav. 2000 Summer;30(2):163-76.

Abstract

This article reviews the findings of 84 sociological studies published over a 15-year period. These studies deal with tests of the modernization and/or social integration perspectives on suicide. Research on modernization, religious integration, and political integration often questioned or reformulated the traditional Durkheimian perspective. A major new theoretical development, Pescosolido's religious networks perspective, gained some empirical support in the 15-year period. The strongest support for social integration theory came from research on marital integration, wherein more than three quarters of the research found a significant relationship. Finally, further research on migration, a force lowering social integration, continued to tend to find a positive link to suicide.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors
  • Divorce
  • Humans
  • Politics
  • Religion
  • Social Class
  • Social Support
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Sociology
  • Suicide / psychology*
  • Suicide / trends*
  • United States