Year: 1998 Source: Sex Roles, v.38, no.7/8, (April 1998), p.501-520 SIEC No: 20101024

Previous work on suicide acceptability has neglected gender-specific analysis of the marriage-suicide acceptability linkage as well as cross-national analysis. This study fills the gap by analyzing data from 15 countries. Controlling for alternative predictors of suicide acceptability, marriage lowers suicide acceptability for both males & females. Marriage lowers suicide acceptability more for men than for women. This gendered relationship had the same strength in nations both high & low in economic gender equality. Findings support the notion that men derive relatively more benefits from marriage than women. However, the strongest correlates of suicide acceptability affected men & women equally. (92 refs.) JA