Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Farmer Suicides In India: Levels And Trends Across Major States, 1995-2011, Deepankar Basu, Debarshi Das, Kartik Misra

Economics Department Working Paper Series

In the paper, we use data on farmer suicides from the National Crime Records Bureau and population data from the Censuses of 1991, 2001 and 2011 to estimate the suicide mortality rate (SMR) of farmers and non-farmers for 19 major states of India and for the country as a whole. We use movements in the SMR ratio ratio of farmer SMR and non-farmer SMR) to understand the level and trend of the problem of farmer suicides across states and over time. For the country as a whole, and for many individual states, the SMR ratio has increased over time. This …