Interrelation between the prevalence rate of suicides and the length of working hours

It is known that overworking as well as deficiency of work (plenty of free time) are major factors of a suicide on an individual level which allows when passing to the level of a real social group (employees) to suppose of existence of a certain optimum of working time or a parabolic (U-shaped) connection between the suicide rate and an average duration of working time.

From the theoretical point of view the supposed parabolic dependence of the level of prevalence of suicides from an average duration of working time of employees is described from the point of view of suicidology: excessive increase of working time is an external tendency which prevents satisfaction of actual needs of an employee and limits physically the space (off-work time) for their realization. Multidirectional tendencies form a life conflict which has crucial significance when transferring to a suicidal phase. The objective of this article consists in a qualitative assessment of an influence of “an average duration of working time” on the level of prevalence of suicides when other things are fixed (economic, social, religious and others) in a relatively stable social situation. For the econometric analysis, reliable and comparable data of the European database of detailed mortality data of the World Health Organization and Eurostat are used for 22 European countries for the period from 1998 till 2012. Based on analysis of a dynamics of the studied variables different hypothesis have been made: 1) about existence of statistically significant linear or logarithmic dependence of the level of prevalence of suicides from an average factual duration of working time inside a country 2) about existence of a parabolic (U-shaped) dependence of the level of prevalence of suicides from an average factual duration of working time between countries. A set of panel unit root tests and stationarity testify that the examined variables are unsteady variables with integratedness order I(1). The results of Pedroni panel cointegration tests show that the studied variables are likely cointegrated. The models of panel regression of linear, logarithmic and parabolic specifications are actualized: namely the model for mean values, the model with fixed effects and the model with random effects.

As a result of econometric analysis it was determined that the difference in the level of prevalence of suicides of employees in timing inside one country is best explained by a logarithmic dependence from an average factual duration of working time by using a model with fixed effects and a difference between countries – by U-shaped dependence by using a model with random effects. As a result it was established that using the minimal solution of the equation of the parabolic model with random effects, the optimal value of the average actual duration of the working week (38,7 hours) is determined, at which the minimum of suicides is reached. Existence of a best value of working time opens up opportunities for scientifically proven regulation of working time towards optimum in order to reduce the number of suicides.

1. Waters S. (2015). Suicide as Protest in the French Workplace. Modern & Contemporary France, no. 23 (4), pp. 491–510.

2. Kawanishi Y. (2008). On Karo-Jisatsu (Suicide by Overwork): Why Do Japanese Workers Work Themselves to Death? International Journal of Mental Health, no. 1 (37), pp. 61–74.

3. Kawahito H. (1998). Suicide by Overwork. Iwanami Shinsho Series. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

4. Kivimäki M., Jokela M., Nyberg S. T., Singh-Manoux A., Fransson E. I., Alfredsson L., Bjorner J. B., Borritz M., Burr H., Casini A., Clays E., Bacquer D. D., Dragano N., Erbel R., Geuskens G. A., Hamer M., Hooftman W. E., Houtman I. L., Jöckel K.-H., Kittel F., Knutsson A., Koskenvuo M., Lunau T., Madsen I. E. H, Nielsen M. L., Nordin M., Oksanen T., Pejtersen J. H., Pentti J., Rugulies R., Salo P., Shipley M. J., Siegrist J., Steptoe A., Suominen S. B., Theorell T., Vahtera J., Westerholm P. J. M., Westerlund H., O’Reilly D., Kumari M., Batty G. D., Ferrie J. E., Virtanen M. (2015). Long working hours and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished data for 603838 individuals. Articles, no. 386, 1739–1746. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)60295-1.pdf.

5. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/data/hours-worked/average-annual-hours-actually-worked_data-00303-en.

6. Gorvett Z. (2016). “Death from overwork” is so common in Japan there’s even a word for it. But is it physically possible? BBC Capital. September 13. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160912-is-there-such-thing-as-death-from-overwork.

7. Jurevich A. V. (2009). Dinamika psihologicheskogo sostojanija sovremennogo rossijskogo obshhestva. Vestnik rossijskoj akademii nauk, no. 2 (79), pp. 112–120.

8. Zhuravlev A. L. (2009). Konkurentosposobnost' nacii i obrazovanie: psihologicheskie aspekty. Informacionnyj gumanitarnyj portal “Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie”, no. 2. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://www.zpu-journal.ru/e-zpu/2009/2/Zhuravlev/.

9. Gilinskij Ja. V. (2011). Samoubijstvo kak social'nyj fenomen. Sociologicheskij zhurnal, no.2, pp. 39–48. (In Russ.).

10. Korotkov A. P. (2005). Ravnodnevka. Omsk: OmGTU. 130 p. (In Russ.).

11. Abrumova A. G., Tihonenko V. A. (1980). Diagnostika suicidal'nogo povedenija. Metodicheskie rekomendacii. Moscow: HOZU Minnefteproma. 55 p. (In Russ.).

12. Jur'eva L. N. (2006). Klinicheskaja suicidologija: Monografija. Dnepropetrovsk: Porogi. 472 p. (In Russ.).

13. Kiknadze D. A. (1968). Potrebnosti. Povedenie. Vospitanie. Moscow: Mysl'. 152 p. (In Russ.).

14. Guest D. (2002). Perspectives on the study of work-life balance. Social Science Information, no. 41, pp. 255–279.

15. Verbik M. (2006). Modeli, osnovannye na panel'nyh dannyh. Prikladnaya Ekonometrika, no. 1, pp. 94–135.

16. Jalles T. and Andresen A. (2014). Suicide and Unemployment: A Panel Analysis of Canadian Provinces. Archives of Suicide Research, no. 18 (1), pp. 14–27.

17. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database.

18. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://data.euro.who.int/dmdb/.

19. IHS. (2014). EViews 8.1. User’s Guide II. IHS Global Inc.

20. Levin A., Lin C. F., and Chu C. (2002). Unit Root Tests in Panel Data: Asymptotic and Finite-Sample Properties. Journal of Econometrics, no. 108, pp. 1–24.

21. Breitung J. (2000). The Local Power of Some Unit Root Tests for Panel Data. Advances in Econometrics, no. 15, pp. 161–178.

22. Im K. S., Pesaran M. H. and Shin Y. (2003). Testing for Unit Roots in Heterogeneous Panels. Journal of Econometrics, no. 115, pp. 53–74.

23. Maddala G. S. and Wu S. (1999). A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, no. 61, pp. 631–652.

24. Jengl Robert F., Grjendzher K. U. Dzh. (2015). Kointegracija i korrekcija oshibok: predstavlenie, ocenivanie i testirovanie. Prikladnaya Ekonometrika, no. 39 (3), pp. 107–135.

25. Pedroni P. (1999). Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, no. 61, pp. 653–670.

26. Pedroni P. (2004). Panel cointegration: asymptotic and finite sample properties of pooled time series tests with an application to the PPP hypothesis. Econometric Theory, no. 20, pp. 597–625.

27. Shimanovich G. (2009). Vneshnij dolg Belarusi: opyt postsocialisticheskih stran. Rabochij material Issledovatel'skogo centra IPM WP/09/01. (In Russ.).

28. Kopnova E. D., Rozental' O. M. (2010). Jekonometricheskij analiz jekologicheskogo menedzhmenta rybnyh resursov. Prikladnaya Ekonometrika, no. 2 (18), pp. 90–100. (In Russ.).

29. Larin A. V., Tarunina E. N. (2015). Predprinimatel'skaja aktivnost' i uroven' jekonomicheskogo razvitija: forma zavisimosti. Prikladnaya Ekonometrika, no. 37 (1), pp. 3–26. (In Russ.).

30. Ahmed A. D. (2012). Debt Burden, Military Spending And Growth In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis. Defence and Peace Economics, no. 23 (5), pp. 485–506.

31. Korotkov P. A., Zagajnova E. A. (2016). Aktual'naja motivacija povsednevnoj zhizni rabotajushhih po najmu i trudnost' zadachi. Mezhdunarodnyj zhurnal prikladnyh i fundamental'nyh issledovanij, no. 11 (5), pp. 951–954. [Electronic resource] Available at: http://www.applied-research.ru/ru/article/view?id=10568. (In Russ.).

32. Pedroni P. (2000). Fully modified OLS for heterogeneous cointegrated panels. In B. Baltagi and C.D. Kao (Eds.). Advances in econometrics, nonstationary panels, panel cointegration and dynamic panels, pp. 93–130.

33. Swamy P. A. V. B. and Arora S. S. (1972). The exact finite sample properties of the estimators of coefficients in the error components regression models. Econometrica, no. 40, pp. 261–275.

34. Boniwell I., Osin E. (2015). Beyond time management: Time use, performance, and well-being. Organizational Psychology, no. 5 (3), pp. 85–104.