10 Countries With the Highest Suicide Rates (According to the OECD)

Before we go any further, it's important to note that this data pertains specifically to the member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD countries for short.

This is a group of 38 countries whose governments have certain agreements, mostly involving trade policies. These are high- or middle-income countries with high living standards, and they have the kind of societal development that makes data gathering relatively efficient and reliable.

As we'll get to later on, these rankings look very different when we look beyond the OECD countries listed in our top 10. This is a snapshot of a the suicide rates of a particular portion of the world's population, not a comprehensive survey.

The data, which counts suicide mortality per 100,000 residents, is from 2020.

1. South Korea (24.1)

South Korea's suicide rate is a serious public health problem. While it is especially prevalent among the elderly population (who may suffer from social and familial neglect), the suicide rate of young people has also been on the rise in the past decade or so.

Various suicide prevention initiatives have been attempted, but progress has so far been slow.

2. Lithuania (20.3)

The suicide rate in Lithuania has been declining since the mid '90s, but it remains the second-highest of OECD countries.

Like many post-Soviet countries, the transition away from communism in the 1990s was rocky, and social conditions were severely strained by the upheaval, exacerbating other underlying mental health issues.

3. Hungary (16.1)

Hungary has seen progress in its efforts to deal with suicide and has seen a steady decline for decades.

Like many countries with relatively high suicide rates, there is significant variance between different regions. Suicide occurs much more frequently in poor and rural areas than in the more affluent urban areas.

4. Slovenia (15.7)

This is another central European country with a somewhat high suicide rate that has shown significant progress in reduction. Slovenia is a small country but has a fairly modern mixed economy and a generally high standard of living. As is common, suicide rates vary by gender and region.

5. Japan (15.4)

In Japan, suicide rates have seen some fluctuation in recent years, likely owing to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While progress had been steady since a sudden surge in the late 1990s, rates rose again during the fallout from COVID. For Japanese men aged 20 to 44, suicide is the most common cause of death.

6. Estonia (15.1)

Estonia is a Northern European country and OECD member state. That means, like the other high-income countries on this list, it has a relatively advanced economy and a decent-to-high standard of living.

Still, it has a relatively high prevalence of suicide deaths, illustrating the difficulty of addressing this problem.

7. Latvia (14.9)

Latvia is another Northern European country; like Estonia, it is on the Baltic Sea and is a small, high-income country with a relatively advanced economy. Still, social problems such as alcoholism and alienation have contributed to its suicide rate.

8. Belgium (14.6)

Belgium is a country in Western Europe (sometimes considered to be part of northwestern Europe). Known to have the highest suicide rate in all Western European countries, it another example of suicide being a serious problem, even in high income countries with relatively good health care systems.

9. United States (14.1)

The United States has long been a wealthy country with a relatively high suicide rate. In the past decade, the problem worsened, especially related to the "deaths of despair" designation. This measure draws comparisons between deaths of suicide, drug overdose and alcoholic liver disease.

Dire economic and social prospects for people are believed to be major factors.

10. Finland (12.9)

Finland is a Scandinavian country with one some of the best education and healthcare in the world.

It's therefore a nagging paradox that despite boasting one of the highest livings standards in the world — and often record-setting levels of reported happiness among its population — it still has a relatively high suicide rate.

Researchers have considered factors such as long, dark, cold winters and alienation among the relatively few who feel worse off despite general well-being.

As mentioned above, these rankings don't consider the states who aren't members of the OECD, and the billions of people who live in them.

In fact, data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that Africa has the highest suicide rate in the world, with some countries significantly higher than South Korea, our number one state. Lesotho is a particularly extreme and tragic case, with a suicide rate of 87.5 per 100,000 population.

However distressing, there is some intuitive sense in these statistics: Despite having abundant natural resources and the fastest-growing population, African countries are often relatively poor, with millions of inhabitants that face serious social problems, war and strife.

Cultural and social disruption, much of it tracing back to the brutal legacy of colonialism, continue to be factors in this pressing issue.

Gathering social data is always hard, but suicide presents an especially difficult challenge to public health researchers. Mainly, this is because of various cultural stigmas and taboos that exist around suicide, even in relatively affluent, high income countries.

In areas where public health infrastructure is weak, there are even greater hurdles to accurate reporting.

It's likely that, if anything, global suicide rates are under-reported. With modern technology and increased cooperation between different countries, we can hope for better results in the future, which should help to tackle the problem.

Given that those who attempt suicide once are more likely to do so again, outreach and transparency are considered very valuable strategies.

One of the few things that can be said with confidence is that men commit suicide at much higher rates than women. Accounting for this disparity has been a puzzle for decades, and researchers have considered many factors in attempts to explain it.

1. Means of Suicide

While the suicide rate for men is higher everywhere, there are many more suicide attempts among women. Women also consistently report more frequent suicidal thoughts.

Some researchers believe that men's tendency to use more lethal means, such as firearms, might explain the lower female suicide rates.

2. Traditional Gender Roles

Some researchers believe that the burden of being a primary (or solo) breadwinner can turn especially challenging in hard economic times. Additionally, men are less likely to have strong social bonds with people other than their spouses, leading them to be more isolated if their partner dies or leaves.

3. Emotional Isolation

In many cultures men are less likely to be emotionally self-aware or vulnerable. So, when they are dealing with mental health problems like depression, they may have less awareness of or willingness to use the resources available to them.

This might also help explain why the female suicide rate is generally lower than the male suicide rate.

If there's a silver lining to any of this, it's that some places have seen success in treating the social problem of suicide, and awareness seems to be rising everywhere.

It's becoming less taboo to speak out about an attempted suicide — which is one of the most severe risk factors — and about suicidal thoughts.

As the world becomes more aware of suicide and the mental conditions than can contribute to it, the knowledge gained is surely a useful asset.

While some forms of assistance are relatively straightforward, such as better funding for mental health, housing and jobs, other interventions will be more subtle and rely on international information-gathering and sharing.