Male construction workers have a 50 per cent higher risk of suicide attempts and suicide, a stark new study has found.
The findings, carried out at the University of Gothenburg, confirmed that suicidal behaviour is more common among men in professions with low educational requirements like fast food workers and salespeople.
The study focused on the jobs men had the year before they took their own life or attempted to, and have thrown up unsettling findings, including that men who didn’t work at all were at highest risk of suicidal behaviour – more than doubled compared to all men in the study.
“Men working in service and care professions often have high work-related stress and less control over their work situation,” explained Jenny Nyberg, the study’s lead author and the university’s associate public health professor.
“While this can lead to mental illness, there is also research suggesting that there may be a selection of mentally vulnerable individuals into these professions.”
The study covered 1,542,665 Swedish men of working age who had no prior history of suicidal behaviour from 2002-2019. Out of all the men, aged 25-65, just over two per cent experienced at least one suicidal event.
This included 31,797 suicide attempts and 5,526 suicides.
Among working men, the risk of suicidal behaviour was highest in professions with low educational requirements. This group includes cleaners, sanitation workers, newspaper delivery workers, fast food workers, factory workers, and salespeople. Men in such professions had a 60 per cent greater risk of suicidal acts.
The lowest risk of suicidal behaviour was among male sales and marketing managers. Highly educated men, such as engineers and researchers, had their risk of suicidal behavior halved compared to all men included in the study.
Macho culture and stigma around mental health is rife in the construction industry, a previous study detailed.
“The construction industry is physically very demanding and stressful, which is perceived to have a negative effect on both physical and mental well-being,” said Professor Maria Åberg, co-author of the study.
“Our previous research also highlighted long-term pain as a factor that can lead to the overconsumption of alcohol and painkillers.”
It comes after a major safety alert was issued for a popular kitchen worktop following the “tragic” deaths of two young tradespeople. The UK’s Health and Safety Watchdog drew attention to a deadly lung disease which comes from breathing in toxic silica dust when cutting man-made stone, like quartz, without proper safety measures.
Dad-of-three Marek Marzec died in November after developing the disease through years of cutting kitchen worktops. The 48-year-old had been too ill to undergo a potentially lifesaving lung transplant. He called the dust “lethal” and complained of “appalling” work conditions that led him to his deathbed.
If you need someone to talk to, call Samaritans at 116 123.
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