PROMENE U OBRASCIMA SAMOUBISTVA U 20. VEKU. (SOCIJALNA) HIJERARHIJA BEZNAĐA?
CHANGES OF SUICIDE PATTERNS IN THE 20TH CENTURY SOCIAL HIERARCHY OF DESPAIR

Summary/Abstract: The impact of society on the suicide is an enigma that sociologists try to solve since E. Durkheim’s time. Determinants indicated by Durkheim have continued to act, but they are articulated differently today. During industrialization period in the West in the XIX century suicide rates were heavily increasing, but they were decreasing during the XX century. This contradicts the catastrophic vision in which economic development unavoidably leads to pathological forms of individualism, isolation, and thus to greater exposure to suicide, and induce to think about new forms of sociability having protective function, generated in modern developed societies. Increasing suicide rates in China, India and Russia may point to similar social destabilization patterns which the West experienced in the XIX century. But maybe the most striking result of contemporary research is the turnover of suicide rates according to ages of life. In Durkheim’s explication sheme regular increasing of suicide rates with aging was seen as a "natural fact". However, starting with petrol crisis in the 70-ies, suicide rates of the young have grown, and of the old have clearly stagnated or decreased in developed western countries. This strong growth points to the crisis of identity construction where the unemployement, dequalification and uncertainty of the job market are in the same time a sign of social denial of individuals personal value. Nevertheless, Durkheim’s conclusion " La misère protège" doesn’t seem to be valid any more: sucide rates regularly increase from the top to the bottom of social hierarchy. Suicide rates follow the mouvements of society in both large and short scale. If society is able to put its sign on such a personal act as a suicide, it does it even more efficiently on the other aspects of life.

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