BBC: More than a third of female students ‘have mental health problems’

Our thanks to Jeff for this – a piece with a photograph of a distressed young woman. A better headline would have been:

More than a quarter of students ‘have mental health problems’

From the article:

In May, statistics published by the ONS showed student suicides had risen to their highest level since numbers were first recorded in 2007.

These figures – for 2014 – showed there were 130 suicides in England and Wales among full-time students aged 18 or above. Of those, 97 deaths were for male students and 33 were females.

In typical BBC fashion, no comment is made of this gender differential. Another alternative headline would have been:

Three-quarters of students who commit suicide are male.

 

2 thoughts on “BBC: More than a third of female students ‘have mental health problems’

  1. Whether its nature or nurture the pattern of “Mental Health” illness has been well charted. Males are disproportionately in the serious and acute (and Suicide) figures with women much more likely to have anxiety disorders or “low level” depressive disorders. In the “business” they constitute to bulk of the “worried”. I suspect this is perfectly reflected here.
    Now it could be that males simply underreport their “worry” , and I personally think that is partly true. But there is such evidence on a real gender divide on anxiety. for instance the crucial difference in domestic abuse is not in the behaviours but in the reaction. With males much less likely to report being afraid, to think their abuse a crime or to report feeling powerless. Similarly so for being the victim of assaults and so on. To me the solution is not to make males more anxious and fearful but to address this general fragility in Women, and not punish men.

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