marijasni-blog

[marijasni-blog]

assignment 1

(1) what data set you have chosen; 

(2) describe the association you would like to study. You will also prepare a codebook of your own.

For this assignment, I have chosen the data set GapMinder, which seeks to increase the use and understanding of statistics about social, economic, and environmental development at local, national, and global levels. I am interested in the association between murder level and suicide level. My research question has both, empirical and theoretical grounds. Empirically, in the period of 2010-2016, the leading country in terms of suicide rate (per 100 000 people) is Lithuania (25.2 in 2015) (https://www.gapminder.org/data/). It is the leading country in this respect the period 2010-2016. Lithuania stands out also in a high rate of murders, e.g., in the period of 2010-2016, the murder index is between 3,05 – 4,57 per 100 000 inhabitants. Looking at the rates of suicide and murder, there are also a few other countries that stand out too. For instance, in Kazakhstan the suicide rate (16,4 suicides per 100 000 people in 2015) and murder rate (5,89 murders per 100 000 inhabitants in 2015) are also relatively high. Therefore, already on these empirical grounds I would like to investigate the association between murder and suicide rates. The study would also articulates a hypothesis, that in the countries, where there is an association between suicide and murder rates is determined, might be a prevalent devaluation of life. In other words, in case the association between murder and suicide rates is determined, it could be worthwhile to raise a question of prevalent belief that human life is not valuable. Such a research would open up a new explanatory avenues to dealing with both, suicide and murder, in terms of poor social ties (e.g., Durkheim’s term of “anomie” (1897, Suicide: A study in Sociology) or quite prevalent contemporary economic explanations (e.g.,  Impact of 2008 global economic crisis on suicide: time rend in 54 countries) (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/bad-economic-news-increases-suicide-rates-new-research/).

 My Research Question: Is there an association between suicide and murder rates?