Suicide rates are now higher among young adults than the middle-aged
It’s time to update statements about age and suicide
When discussing age and suicide, it’s become near-gospel to note that suicide rates are highest among the middle-aged. “Suicide rates highest among middle-aged men,” read the headline of a 2017 NBC News article. The website for the advocacy group Samaritans says, “Middle-aged men are more likely to die by suicide than any other age group.” In reference to the increasing suicide rate for young people, psychologists Chris Ferguson and Patrick Markey countered that “Suicides are higher among middle-aged adults.”
Not anymore.
Figure 1: Suicide rate among U.S. adults ages 20-59, by decade of age, 2007-2021. Source: WISQARS fatal injury database, CDC.
In 2020 and 2021, the suicide rate among Americans in their 20s or 30s was higher than the suicide rate among those in their 40s or 50s (see Figure 1; 2021 is the most recent data available).
Between 2019 and 2021, suicide fell among middle-aged adults and continued to rise among younger adults. The end result was the reversal of the long-accepted statistic that more middle-aged Americans take their own lives than younger adults.
But is it still true that the highest suicide rate is among middle-aged men? That’s what headlines have often noted.
It is not. The highest suicide rate is now among younger men (see Figure 2). Suicide rates for middle-aged men fell precipitously after 2018 while those for younger men rose. Until men reach 75 or older, when suicides rise due to terminal illness, the highest suicide rates are now among men in their 20s – not the middle-aged.
Figure 2: Suicide rate among U.S. men 20-59, by decade of age, 2007-2021. Source: WISQARS fatal injury database, CDC.
There’s also a striking pattern among women: The suicide rate among middle-aged women fell after 2019 while the rate for younger women continued to rise (see Figure 3). Middle-aged women are still more likely to take their own lives than younger women, but the gap has narrowed considerably.
Figure 3: Suicide rate among U.S. women 20-59, by decade of age, 2007-2021. Source: WISQARS fatal injury database, CDC.
In its fatal injury tables, the CDC offers a grim statistic: years of potential life lost. In 2021, the years of life lost to suicide among 50- to 59-year-olds in the U.S. was 80,660. Because 20- to 29-year-olds are younger and their suicide rate is now higher, their years of potential life lost are 347,611– more than four times as many.
Most obviously, suicide prevention efforts need to focus more on younger men than they do now. The increasingly high rates of depression and self-harm among teen girls and young women also demand our attention.
It’s also worth examining the reason behind the good news: Why did suicide decline among Americans in their 50s in 2020-2021? The most obvious explanation is the changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, although a decline in suicide is exactly opposite to the significant rise in suicide many predicted. Perhaps there was a silver lining to the pandemic for those in their 50s, especially for those who worked from home and spent more time with their families. The pandemic may have also created a greater appreciation for life, especially among the middle-aged. Only time will tell if the lower suicide rate among those in their 50s was a blip due to the pandemic or a longer-standing trend with other causes as well.
It is imperative to recognize that not all of the news is good. These statistics increase the urgency of determining what has gone wrong for Gen Z and younger Millennials: They are not only depressed but are taking their own lives at high rates. Despite the statements of critics, focusing on the mental health of teens and young adults is not a moral panic. It is now a mandate.
Unfortunately, it's hard to post tables in comments, because this trend requires more nuance. Here are the first and second leading age groups by suicide rate over the last six years:
2018: 55-59, 50-54
2019: 55-59, 45-49
2020: 30-34, 25-29
2021: 25-29, 20-24
2022: 50-54, 30-34*
2023: 55-59, 35-39*
*Suicide totals for 2022 are preliminary and appear 99%+ complete; totals for 2023 are preliminary and appear 90%+ complete. They may change, but probably not radically. (Source: CDC)
Unless some radical anomaly occurs in finalizing 2023-24 numbers, suicide rates appear to be returning to middle-aged dominance. But there is another nuance. Age 30-39 may becoming a second node, for reasons unknown. For now, it appears that COVID may well have brought a spike in 20-29 suicides, not a long-term mental health trend.
Suicide is the main officially-determined form of self-destructive death, but there is another, larger one that also is self-inflicted and involves self-destructive behavior: overdose of non-prescribed drugs and of alcohol. Here is the same trend for the two leading age groups for overdose death rates:
2018: 35-39, 30-34
2019: 35-39, 30-34
2020: 35-39, 30-34
2021: 35-39, 40-44
2022: 35-39, 40-44
2023: 40-44, 35-39
Again, provisional 2022-23 figures will change when finalized, though probably not by much. The above immediate overdose deaths exclude use of legally prescribed drugs, drug suicides, and deaths from long-term drug/alcohol abuse.
There are some good indications that both the suicide and overdose rates declined among the teenage and 20-age populations but rose substantially for the 30-age, 40-age, and 50-age groups after 2021. So, we might want to hold off declaring that young ages are taking over the self-destructive categories until we have better, longer-term data.
Interestingly, the suicide rate among young adults was already rising, but did not begin to exceed those of older age groups until....*checks notes* 2020. Gee, what could possibly have happened in 2020-2021 that would have psychologically hit young people so much harder than older age groups?
Oh yeah, the pandemic. And even worse, the response to it: lockdowns, antisocial distancing, school/university closures, business closures, mask mandates, and the jabs and jab mandates. Not to mention the 24/7 fearporn news media panic. It's almost like the "cure" was...wait for it...worse than the disease. Somehow I highly doubt that Sweden had anywhere near as bad a rise in suicide rates as the USA or any other Anglosphere country. But hey, what do I know? I'm just the 800 pound guerrilla in the room.