Now let’s come to the suicidal trend as appearing in the media. The reports of suicides are more from urban areas than rural India. We also see that unemployment rate on 30 day moving average in urban area is higher than the rural areas.
Here, it also must be noted that we have Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) for the rural population, but we don’t have any such employment guarantee scheme for the urban poor.
The unemployed in the urban areas are totally at the mercy of market forces, at a time when COVID-19 lockdowns and the containment measures had completely distorted the labour market situation.
Suicides in India were already on the rise before the pandemic, which grew by 3.4 per cent in 2019 as against 2018. States like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal reported large number of suicides even before the pandemic. These states are also known for giving large number of employment due to concentration of industries and business.
When the pandemic struck, industries and business disruption were obviously largest in these states causing largest number of job losses. No wonder, largest number of suicide cases are being reported from these states, which is a matter of serious concern.
Though the figures suggest there is a link between jobs loss and suicides and also deterioration of mental health during the pandemic causing several other tribulations of an individual, only a detailed study can clear the hazy picture we have now.
In 2019, of the total suicides, about 2 per cent were reported due to unemployment. Professional and career problem caused 1.2 per cent, poverty caused 0.9 per cent, and indebtedness caused 4.2 per cent of suicides. About 0.4 per cent died by suicide due to fall in social reputation.
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