Suicides by age

Every life lost to suicide is a tragedy. Understanding the data can help save lives. In the 1990s the average age of someone lost to suicide was 23, today it is 47. Why? Are we better at helping young people? Are those 40-50 less likely to seek help? Is it something else?

In England and Wales, there were 5,961 suicides recorded in 2019 alone. The heat map above shows the number of suicides by the age of death from 1981 to 2017. 

In the 1980s, suicides were reasonably evenly distributed over a wide age range. From around 1990 onwards, however, the age range narrowed, with fewer suicides in older people and a noticeable peak in younger people in their early 20s. 

Over the following decades, the peak age for recorded suicides steadily increased, and as of 2017 the most common age for people in England and Wales taking their own life was 47. 

Interestingly, there is an almost linear relationship between the year and age of suicide. This may suggest that this particular generation has a higher prevalence of suicide, and the peak age has simply moved as they have grown older. Or there could be many other factors influencing the increasing average age of suicides.