Women’s Fatalistic Suicide in Iran. a Partial Test of Durkheim in an Islamic Republic

The authors test Durkheim’s theory of fatalistic suicide by examing the geographic distribution of female suicide in Iran. Employing the province as the unit of analysis, the association between female suicide rates & multiple measures of social control of women is examined. Results show that provinces with lower levels of female education, female labour force participation, & urbanization have higher female suicide rates. Thus, whereas social deregulation is often associated with higher suicide rates in the West, this study revealed that hyperregulation is associated with higher suicide rates in Iran, at least for women. (42 refs.)