For decades, the suicide rate for males has been much higher than for females across all age groups. Girls and women are more likely than boys and men to be depressed, to self-harm, or to think about suicide, but the suicide rate has always been higher among boys and men.
Over the summer I started gathering studies looking at recent trends in suicide rates in Europe and Asia as well as Australia, Canada, and the UK. Most of these analyses found substantial increases in suicide rates among females, particularly young women and teen girls. The trends were not as consistent for males. In some countries, including South Korea, Spain, and Japan, the usual sex difference reversed, with the suicide rate for teen girls higher than that for teen boys.
That made me wonder what the trends looked like in the U.S. I turned first to the youngest group, those ages 10 to 14.
Those are years of tremendous change, when kids go from children still in elementary school to teens in their first year of high school. Sadly, suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age group (the first is accidents, which includes car and bicycle accidents as well as accidental drug overdoses). Trying to prevent suicides in this young and vulnerable group is a high priority.
When the 2024 data was released, I graphed out the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-old U.S. boys and girls since 2001. I immediately noticed an odd trend.
