Durkheim on Religion and Suicide - A Demographic Critique

Abstract

Employing essentially the same method as Durkheim - but with data that, while largely contemporaneous with those he used, are arguably better suited to the task - it is considered whether there is any empirical basis, even in Durkheim's terms, for one of his best known and most significant theoretical statements: that based on the analysis of differential suicide rates between Catholic and Protestant populations. Analysis of data from Prussia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands affords no support for the view that there is less suicide in Catholic than in non-Catholic populations. The apparent differential between them can readily be attributed to a greater tendency within Catholic populations to register suicide as something else - most commonly as either accidental death, `sudden' death, or death of unknown cause. This raises doubts not only about Durkheim's theories concerning suicide but also about other causal theories concerning this phenomenon that rely on a sociological, as contrasted with a psychological (or even idiosyncratic) frame of reference.