The Economics of Adolescent Suicidality

The study under report was conducted to examine the differential effects, if any, of economic conditions of the family on suicidality among adolescents. 300 randomly selected adolescents from Intermediate colleges located in Jaunpur (U.P.) participated in this study. Their age ranged between 12 and 18 years with the mean age being 15.05 years. The sample consisted of male and female as well as rural and urban adolescents. They were administered the TS Suicidal Ideation scale (Singh & Thakur, 2004) and Socio-economic scale (Pandey & Singh, 1994). Three groups were formed on the basis of the scores of participants on the SES scale (high, middle & low economic groups). The descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The results obtained in the study revealed that adolescents from poor economic background are more prone to suicidality as compared to the groups of adolescents from high and middle economic families. Four hypotheses were framed and the results obtained are in accordance with the proposed hypotheses.. The results are thoroughly discussed and interpreted and limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also given.