Suicide Rates in Lithuania

Lithuania has consistently maintained the highest suicide rate in Europe since their departure from the USSR. With a 2016 rate of 28.3 suicides per 100,000 residents, they far exceed other countries with high rates, such as Latvia, Hungary, and Slovenia, who had rates in the late teens. Lithuania’s suicide rates are ultimately going down over time, as they hit a high of 45.6 in 1995 and have lowered consistantly since. That being said, they still remain disturbingly high. While this trend can’t be pinned to just one issue completely, it’s hypothesized that the high suicide rates in Lithuania are due to poverty and bad living conditions. While Lithuania has fared comparably well next to other former Soviet states, the gap between the rich and the poor is large, the differences between major cities such as their capital of Vilnius and the more rural regions of the country notable. According to research done by Mariarosaria Comunale, “macroeconomic and labour-market conditions appear to be strongly linked to total and males suicides.” Suicide rates are notably higher than the country average in rural regions such as Varena, which had a rate of 71.9 in 2006 while the country as a whole had a rate of 30. Lack of access to jobs and isolation may be responsible for the spike in suicide in rural districts, as well as a lowered ability to adapt to post-Soviet life compared to more developed areas of the country. According to Alvydas Navickas, president of the Lithuanian Association of Suicidology, “Better social conditions will lead to fewer suicides. Today some people live in such poverty, they have no illusions about escaping it. It’s a big social crisis.”

Sources:

https://voxeu.org/article/persistently-high-rate-suicide-lithuania

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2020/0211/Latvia-and-Lithuania-begin-to-tackle-a-chronic-scourge-suicide

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lithuania-suicide/suicides-in-lithuania-show-social-pains-persist-idUSL0879374620080409