Religion has an enormous influence on any given society. Religion has been widely praised for promoting prosocial behaviors among individuals in society(Moore, 2015). Psychologists as well have acknowledged the benefits religion has to our lives such as reducing the rates of depression. In Sociology as well, religion has been long recognized for its effect of promoting prosocial attitudes and behaviors. It does this by regulating behavior and coming up with norms and values that integrate people into the society.
Emile Durkheim proposed that religion has a prosocial influence of decreasing suicide via establishing values and norms by which individuals in a society live(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2014). Nonetheless, in the modern society, despite increasing religions, suicide rates are also on the rise. Research done by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention revealed that in the year 2005 the suicide rate per 100000 people was 10.9 and by the year 2014 this suicide rate had risen to 12.93 per 100000 individuals(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2014).
The presence of addition different religions may be having an adverse effect on suicide reduction. It may be eroding the social regulation and integration effects that religion has in preventing suicide(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2015). This may cause confusion on what norms and values one should follow, consequently increase the rates of suicide.
The following research is to investigate the consequence of increased religious diversity in countries on the suicide levels. The rationale behind conducting this research is that suicide rates have continued to rise steadily despite the increase in faiths(Tait & Carpenter, 2014). If religion does indeed decrease suicide rates, then they would be decreasing with increasing religion. One of the aims of this research is to find out how religion influences suicide levels. Also, the research seeks to determine if religious heterogeneity leads to increased suicide rates.
The hypothesis in this research is that religious heterogeneity leads increased suicide rates. If social integration and social regulation are one of the major effects of religion on society as suggested by Emile Durkheim, then the increasing popularity of different faiths may cause disruption to this social order(Hjelm, 2013). Different faiths have different values and different beliefs. They can be overwhelming to a person since the individual will not be able to tell which one is right and which one is wrong or which one to follow. Hence, the individual may experience an internal conflict.
Currently, the world is having different major issues on the table where different religions support different things, for instance, the issue of abortion, some faiths are pro-life while others are pro-choice. Another issue is that of homosexuality whereby some religions will persecute homosexual people while others embrace them. Lastly, there is the matter of physician-assisted suicide that has not yet gained popularity. Physician-assisted suicide refers to when a doctor assists his client to commit suicide. It is usually done when a patient is terminally ill and in chronic pain. Some religions accept physician-assisted suicide while others don't.
In a mostly religiously heterogeneous society this issues may be debatable since there are different religions with different values whereas, in a homogenous country, the take of the country on the issues is clearly defined since it is governed by shared values and beliefs. As a result, a homogeneous country is socially regulated and socially integrated.
Literature review
According to Emile Durkheim, the prominent feature of religion is viewed in the influence it has in society. He proposed that people came up with the word God as a representation of society, hence, people who worship God are essentially worshipping society and by doing so they recognize how individuals in the society ought to behave(Hjelm, 2013).
When individuals understand how a certain thing affects the society, they internalize the value or norm(Moore, 2015). For example, a husband will avoid cheating on his wife since he recognizes that it will ruin the family relationship consequently destabilizing the society. According to Durkheim, religion is vital in understanding society's collective identity, and it's the glue that binds the individuals in a society together(Hjelm, 2013). It enables people to define themselves as a society with common norms and values. Hence, religion plays a major role in social regulation and social integration.
Durkheim discussed how social regulation and social integration affected suicide behavior. He stated that the main aim of religion in society is to promote social regulation and social integration(Moore, 2015). Therefore, a disruption in societal social regulation and integration could very well cause an increase in suicide. Durkheim examined the suicidal behavior in different countries and came up with four types of suicide. They are anomic, egoistic, altruistic and fatalistic(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2014). According to Durkheim, the different levels of suicide were determined by an individual’s level of regulation and integration in the society.
According to Goodman and Ritzer, 2004 people who lack the feeling of integration in society are likely to commit egoistic suicide. Such individuals lack the feeling of belonging to a community, and the community may also feel that the lifestyle of the person doesn’t fit in their community. Humans are social beings and feel the need to belong. In this case, individual feels isolated from the society and also lacks moral guidance. As a result, such a person may result in suicide to deal with the isolation.
Durkheim suggested that excessive integration into a society may also lead to suicide(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2015). When a person is excessively integrated into a community, they are under the pressure to succeed since they would not want to let down their society. When such a person fails to succeed or perceives themselves to have failed the society, they may commit suicide to deal with the pain. This type of suicide is known as altruistic suicide. For example, a soldier who feels that he could have prevented an attack on his society but failed to do so may commit suicide if he was too integrated into the society.
Research conducted by Moore, 2014 came up with findings that support Durkheim’s anomic and egoistic suicide models. They analyzed 2,193 counties of the United States, and the findings indicated that low regulation and low integration counties have increased anomic and egoistic suicide rates.
Huang conducted research to investigate the cross-national rates of suicide in 48 countries (Huang, 2000). To measure religion levels Huang used information from the book of facts and world almanac. He considered countries that had over 85% of their population being Muslim or Catholic as religious. The findings showed that there were lower suicide levels for countries that scored high on religion.
Durkheim described anomic suicide as suicide committed when societal regulation is disrupted, for example when there is economic depression(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2014). Fatalistic suicide is committed when there is excessive societal regulation, for example, an employee who feels burdened with the rules and regulations such that he feels constrained and helpless. Studies conducted on how religion affects suicide have shown that the presence of religion decreases suicide as well as suicidal attitudes.
In 2008, Stack and Kposowa conducted a study to investigate the role religion played in suicidal attitudes and behavior. They used two variables to measure this, religious attendance and religious identification. On analyzing their findings, they found that people who identified with a particular religion and those who attended church or other religious gatherings are less accepting of suicide. They also found that more religious countries have lower suicide rates. Stack and Kposowa also assessed suicide acceptability that is attitudes and thoughts supporting suicide and the findings showed that religion decreases suicide acceptability.
While numerous researches have proved that religion does decrease suicide rates, it is not clear the effect that numerous different faiths in a country have on suicide. A study conducted by Ellison on 296 metropolitan areas of the United States in 2000 assessed the effect of religious homogeneity on suicide (Ellison, Burr & McCall, 2000). The findings revealed that religious homogeneity reduces suicide rates showing that religious heterogeneity may decrease the beliefs and norms that protect people from suicide.
Method
The methods used in collecting data for this research include statistics and content analysis. In content analysis, data containing suicide rates for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 was collected from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the America Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). An average of the data collected from the three years was calculated and has been used in analyzing the variation in suicide cases that is occurring from year to year. The data was also useful in depicting the trend that suicide rates have taken. It was found that there has been a steady increase in the rates of suicide in many parts of the world.
The data on suicide rates was collected for different years because countries do not always make records of their suicide cases, and also, people do not always report suicide cases. For example, in some countries where suicide is stigmatized family members may lie about the cause of death so as to avoid stigmatization. Hence, if data from only one year were used, some countries would have zero cases of suicide simply because they did not submit their report to WHO.
The countries included in this analysis have reports of their suicide cases for at least two of the three years. The total number of countries assessed is 41 due to the lack of suicide reports for many countries. While this sample size may be thought of as small, it is consistent with sample sizes for other researches done on suicide. For example Kposowa and Stack (2011) with a sample size of 56 countries.
Independent variable
The religious fractionalization index was used since race and ethnicity are more subject to change than religion. Also, this researches focuses solely on religion and its effect on suicide. Thirdly use of the religious fractionalization index provides more clarity since religion is not as prone to arbitrary classification as racial and ethnic backgrounds. The dependent variable in the case of this research is suicide. The rates of suicide are influenced by the levels of religion heterogeneity and religion homogeneity in different countries.
Findings
When measured using the religious fractionalization index, countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, and Greece appeared to have the lowest levels of diversity in religion. Venezuela had a score of 0.0776, Greece 0.039 and Ecuador 0.095. It is observed that developing countries have more homogenous religion. The data obtained was then compared to that of the suicide rates in the different countries obtained from the World Health Organization. Countries that are religiously homogenous showed lower suicide rates than countries that are heterogeneous. The table below shows some of the statistics from the findings where RFI stands for religious fractionalization index.
Descriptive statistics.
N Minimum Maximum Mean S. Deviation
Suicide rate 41 .800 39.930 13.433 8.959
RFI 41 .049 .842 .452 .202
Population density 41 3.658 393.338 97.702 .097
Conclusion
Different studies have shown that religion promotes prosocial behaviors and attitudes. Also, religion has been seen to decrease suicidal thoughts and decrease the risk that an individual will commit suicide. Emile Durkheim in the 19th century proposed that religion is powerful and can be used to develop prosocial attitudes in people and to reduce suicide rates(Tait & Carpenter, 2014). The above research was conducted to investigate the impact of religion heterogeneity on suicide rates.
The findings from the religious fractionalization index show that countries with higher levels of religious heterogeneity have higher suicide rates than those with high religious homogeneity. Countries with high religious heterogeneity have many different religions that their citizens follow. As a result, there lacks a common belief system, and there are different values and norms. The different values and norms confuse people and the individuals no longer know how to act in society thus a larger number of people result into suicide(Hjelm, 2013).
According to Durkheim, religion's main purpose are social regulation and integration. When there are many different religions in a country, the country's social regulation, and social integration is destabilized(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2015). An individual may fail to feel integrated into the society since the society has many different values and beliefs there is, therefore, less guidance and thus, when under pressure the person may result in egoistic suicide.
Similarly, different values and beliefs in society, destabilize the societal regulation and individuals may not know the proper beliefs and behaviors. Some people would commit suicide to deal with the societal regulation disruption(Abrutyn & Mueller, 2014). This form of suicide is anomic suicide.
The research has various limitations. Firstly a small sample of 41 countries was used. Due to the inadequacy of suicidal reports submitted by countries to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is hard to get a larger sample of countries. Secondly, citizens of countries sometimes fail to report suicide cases due to fear of stigmatization and therefore, even when suicidal reports are submitted to WHO they do not always represent the correct numbers of suicidal cases in the country.
References
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