Financial turmoil drove up the number of suicides in Finland. In 2009, suicides among people of working age were five percent more frequent than in 2007, according to the British medical journal The Lancet.
The research compared statistics for several EU member states from before 2004—Finland, Austria, Britain, Greece, Ireland and Holland—and some of those who joined after 2004, which included Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and the Czech Republic.
Greece, painfully hit by the crisis, had the direst figures, with the number of suicides growing by 17 percent. The financially troubled Ireland saw the number of suicides rise by 13 percent.
The Lancet found it surprising that Finland also suffered from an increase in suicides, since the country provides extensive support for its unemployed. In Austria, which offers similar coverage, suicides fell by five percent in the same time period.
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