Suicide

Abstract

Globally, older adults have higher suicide rates than other age-groups. However, it is predominantly men who die of suicide in late adulthood, with variability by culture. In the United States, European-descent men are overrepresented among suicide decedents. In this article, theories and evidence about aging adversities, individual dispositions, and cultural influences were evaluated for their potential to explain the suicide vulnerability of European-descent older men. Aging adversities were not found to account for these men’s suicide proneness. European-descent older men are exposed to less severe aging adversities than older women or ethnic-minority men—though they may be more impacted by them. Rigidity in coping and in sense of self, consistent with hegemonic-masculinity scripts, emerged as individual-level clues. The indignities-of-aging and the masculinity-of-suicide scripts may be cultural influences. This analysis shows how consideration of masculinities and suicide scripts expands our understanding of older men’s suicide as well as, likely, our tools for its prevention.