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Notes -
The suicide rate was lower in the nineties than in the 50s-70s, so I am skeptical that issues around masculinity are likely to be causal.
Is this one of those things where people point to artifacts of advances in medicine, in order to argue that social issues improved?
If you are saying that, in order to determine the effect of norms of masculinity on suicide rates, all potential independent variables must be considered, that is my entire point. But, you seem to be implying that the reduction in suicide in the 90s was the result of advances in medicine, yet the linked chart shows no reduction in suicide rates from 1944 to 1986. Were there no improvements in medicine in that time period? That seems unlikely. It is certainly possible that advances in medicine explain all or most of the decline, but in order to demonstrate that, you need to bring evidence, rather than just making the assertion.
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