Suicide Rate of Unemployed, Self-Employed More than Farmers in 2018: NCRB

An average of 35 unemployed and 36 self-employed people committed suicide on a daily basis in the year 2018, as per the data revealed by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The total number of suicides combining both the groups accounts for at least 26,085 deaths.

Outnumbering the figures for farmer suicides in the country, which are 10,349, the unemployed persons' suicide rate stood at 12, 396 as compared to 13,149 of the self-employed person suicide rate in 2018, as per the data.

The report also stated that the self-employed category accounted for 9.8 percent of total suicide victims (13,149).

The report further stated that out of 5,763 farmer or cultivatorsuicides, 5,457 were male and 306 were female on the rate of farmer suicides in2018 while 4,586 agricultural labourers committed suicide in 2018 out of which,4,071 were male and 515 were female.

Overall, 1,34,516 suicides were reported in the country in 2018, which is a 3.6 percent increase as compared to 2017. The rate of suicide, which means deaths per one lakh, increased by 0.3 percent in 2018 over 2017.

According to the report, housewives accounted for 54.1 percent of the total female victims (22,937 out of 42,391) and constitute nearly 17.1 percent of total victims who committed suicides during 2018.

"Government servants accounted for 1.3 percent (1,707) of the total suicide victims as compared to 6.1 percent (8,246) of total victims from private sector enterprises. Employees from public sector undertakings formed 1.5 percent (2,022) of the total suicide victims, whereas students and unemployed victims accounted for 7.6 percent (10,159) and 9.6 percent (12,936) of total suicides respectively," it added.

The report said that the majority of suicides were reported from Maharashtra (17,972), followed by Tamil Nadu (13,896), West Bengal (13,255), Madhya Pradesh (11,775), and Karnataka (11,561). These five states accounted for overall 50.9 percent of the total suicides reported in the country in 2018, the report added.