The  Effect of Voluntary Staying at Home on Japanese Female Suicide During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Studies reported an increase in female suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.This study evaluated how pandemic-related confinement at home affected female suicide.We employ a shift-share IV design, assessing whether differential exposure to thepandemic shock led to changes in suicide. We found that suicide increased among femalesunder 20 years old as more people stayed at home. Counterfactual analyses show that atleast 37% of suicides in the demographic group are attributed to home confinement.Our results suggest that a substantial part of the suicide increase among young femaleswas driven by lifestyle changes during the pandemic.

Note:
Funding Information: This research is supported by JSPS Kakenhi (Grant ID: 20K01731 and 21H00672) as well as the Joint Usage/Research Center, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University (Grant ID: IERPK2411).

Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this study.

Keywords: Mental Health, Voluntary lockdown, Females, Shift-share IV, Specification curve analysis