This article from the Lancet may interest people – it explored male suicide in Australian construction by country of birth.
For background:
- “In Australia, the suicide rate among male construction workers is approximately double that of non-construction workers,”
- “migration has come to play an important role in meeting labour demands. In 2016, it was estimated that one in three Australian workers were born overseas”
- “While suicide rates are typically lower among migrants relative to Australian born individuals,3 there are other factors that may modify suicide risk”
- “In Australia, a high proportion of migrant workers are exposed to psychosocial work stressors,5,6 job insecurity,6 and exploitation and underpayment,5 and high rates of bullying and discrimination”
They found:
- “while rates of suicide among construction workers born in Australia and in English-speaking countries appears to have remained steady or declined slightly, rates among construction workers born in non-English speaking European countries and Other countries show more fluctuation”
- “Suicide rates for both construction and nonconstruction workers across the years 2006–2020 were highest for those born in Australia (25.9 and 14.8 per 100,000 respectively)”
- “Among those born outside Australia, construction workers from Englishspeaking countries had the highest age-standardised rates with 19.6 suicide deaths per 100,000, compared to 16.0 per 100,000 for those born in a non-English speaking European country and 15.0 per 100,000 for those born in an Other country”
- “Rates across all groups were lowest for non-construction workers from an Other country (5.8 per 100,000)”
- “these comparisons indicate that for workers born outside Australia, suicide rates for construction workers were markedly elevated relative to the rates of their nonconstruction counterparts”
- “We consider it more plausible that elements of the construction industry are contributing to the elevation of suicide risks among migrant construction workers”
- “Our results indicating that rates of suicide among different migrant groups are lower than among the Australian-born population aligns with other research that used Australian coronial data to show that males and females from different migrant backgrounds have significantly lower suicide rates relative to those born in Australia”
- “There are multiple potential explanations for this. One is the healthy migrant effect: that is, that the very act of migration requires a certain level of health, and at a population level this translates into the health advantage observed”
- “Our results suggest that while migrant workers carry the suicide risk of their country of origin, the construction industry appears to confer an increased risk of suicide migrant construction workers”
- Hence ”migrant construction workers “take on” the increased risk of suicide associated with the construction industry” (emphasis added)
- “this acculturation effect—moving suicide rates among construction workers from non- English speaking countries towards that of those born in Australia and other English-speaking countries—is undesirable, but crucially, it may be preventable”
Ref: King, T. L., Alfonzo, L. F., LaMontagne, A. D., & Maheen, H. (2024). Variations in suicide rates among Australian male construction workers by country of birth. The Lancet Regional Health–Western Pacific, 49.
Study link: https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanwpc/PIIS2666-6065(24)00149-4.pdf
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