the effect of economic– social variables on burgess female suicide of iran (2006-2009)

the rate of suicide globally and in iran is increasing. suicide destroys human capital and poses huge obstacles for the improvement of women’s health and for the wider public health agenda. the main objectives of this paper is to review the available evidence on suicide in iran as well as to explore the underlying causes and reasons for suicidal tendencies among iranian women. the paper tests whether economic inequality, unemployment, urbanization and the rate of divorce is related to suicide mortality. using an unbalanced panel of 30 cities for the period 2006-2009 allows us to control for the effect of unobserved factors that may have an impact on suicide rates. the results show that unemployment, inequality, urbanization and divorce rate is significantly associated with female suicide rates. our results indicate that there is a statistically insignificant positive effect of unemployment, inequality, urbanization and divorce rate on the incidence of suicide. finally, suicide rates were not sensitive to income levels, divorce rates. the paper suggest the need for further and deeper investigation on other effective indicators.