Canadian Society's Indifference Towards Men

      Canadian men, like American men, are suffering through an economic recession, biased divorce courts, child support, alimony and custody inequality. Despite all that, the Canadian media is baffled as to why the suicide rate for men (specially in their middle age), is in all times high.

       The CBC, in a mind-mindbogglingly and dishonest article, admits that men in their 50's have the highest suicide rate but they can't tell you why, even though they let us know that it's not just one factor that contributes to men committing suicide:

"Men take their own lives at about four times the rate women do, a number the Movember Foundation highlights this month in its campaign around men's mental health. 

In Canada and the U.S., the highest suicide rates are among men in their 50s (except for men over 75 in the U.S.).
But we're not sure why.

There's rarely just one factor that explains an individual suicide, and that's likely so for suicide rates."

       Then article then makes the condescending and sexist assumption that these privileged men shouldn't be like that in their 50's:

"For Vancouver psychologist Dan Bilsker, what's striking is how little we really understand about why the numbers peak when men are in their 50s. 'It doesn't fit previous models of things driving suicidal behaviour.' 

In those models, by their 50s, men should 'be feeling more in control of their lives, have worked out a lot of issues, be coping pretty well,' he says. After all, most of them are working, they've had jobs, relationships, children, life experiences. So the high suicide rate "raises a more disturbing model."

So the assumption was that men in their 50's benefited a lot from having jobs, relationships, children, life experiences, and thus it went against their unscientific prediction "models" for men to have such a high rate of suicidality. A quick glance at the data about the average Canadian man's lifestyle, gives a lot of insight to what's contributing to the deep feelings of hopelessness.

For Starters, the unemployment rate between men and women are unequal;  withmen having higher unemployment since the 1980's and a decreasing labor force participation rate. The Statistics Canada government website is our source:

• Since 1990, the unemployment rate for women has been consistently lower than that for men. On average in 2007, the unemployment rate for women was 5.6%, while the rate for men was 6.4%. In contrast, from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, the unemployment rate for men was usually below that for women. The only exception to this trend was in the early 1980s, when the recession affected considerably more men than women.

• While participation in the labour market among women has increased over the past three decades, the rate for men has decreased slightly throughout much of the same period. In 2007, the participation rate among women was 62.7%, 17.0 percentage points higher than in 1976. In contrast, the participation rate among men in 2007 (72.7%) remained below the peak reached in 1981 (78.4%).

Another interesting piece of data is the fact that divorcees are more likely to commit suicide compared to married couples:

Source: Suicide Rates: An Overview

Following divorce, men spend less time with their children, are less likely to obtain primary custody, and pay most alimony and child support according to Statistics Canada:

"In 2011, seven in ten separated or divorced parents indicated that the child lived primarily with his or her mother. Another 15% indicated that the child mainly lived with the father, while 9% reported equal living time between the two parents’ homes.

Living arrangements are closely linked to questions of access or contact, that is, how much time parents spend with their child.Note10 Spending time with the child can include short visits, weekend stays, or longer stretches of time. 

Among non-resident parents, defined here as parents whose child lived primarily with their ex-partner, most spent less than three months a year with their child.Note11 Specifically, 18% of non-resident parents indicated that they did not spend any time with their child within the last year, and 44% stated that they spent some time but less than 3 months. These parents were most often fathers, owing to the fact that they were more likely to be non-resident parents.

In 2011, almost two-thirds (64%) of non-resident parents reported that they were currently paying child support, most of whom were fathers (92%). Payments of child support were also reported by 19% of parents whose child spent equal amounts of time with them and the other parent. On the other hand, child support was received by 41% of resident parents. Of these recipients, 93% were mothers."

Here are the alimony statistics showing that single mothers and divorced women were the biggest recipients of alimony, thus giving men more lifestyle hardships:

"Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) is another source of information on family income and sources of income.[4] Among other things, it provides national data on single mother families receiving social assistance and support payments as a source of income. 

According to this survey, 20 percent of social assistance recipients were single parents (male and female) in 1994. Single mothers accounted for over 90 percent of custodial parents receiving social assistance and almost one-half (48 percent) of female single parents received social assistance. 

Nationally, 72 percent of single mothers with a child under five years old received social assistance and two-thirds of single mothers receiving social assistance had at least one child under ten. 

The SLID also provides data on alimony as a source of income. In 1994, female single parents (with all children under the age of 25) accounted for about one-half of all alimony recipients. Another 28 percent of alimony recipients (almost all women) were married or in a common-law relationship and had children under the age of 25. Approximately one-third of alimony recipients also received social assistance. Of these, at least 75 percent were single mothers. 

Almost half (47 percent) of single mothers who received alimony also received social assistance for at least part of the year. Only one-quarter of all single mothers received alimony and this proportion does not appear to be much different for single mothers who received social assistance. 

The proportion of single mothers who received alimony increases to about 31 percent if only "separated and divorced" single mothers are considered (that is, excluding the "single never-married" and "widowed" mothers). 

Interestingly, single mothers with two or more children are somewhat more likely to receive alimony and in larger amounts than mothers with only one child. The likelihood of single mothers receiving alimony does not appear to vary significantly by the mothers' levels of education, except that mothers with a post-secondary degree or certificate receive higher amounts."

Children are increasingly suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies for not having access to their father. One can assume this contributes to the stress level fathers already suffer. For instance, American men have stated that loss of access to their family by alienation is a heavy contributor to suicide:   

               

Source: Childhood experiences of loss and suicide attempts: significance in depressive states of major depressed and dysthymic or adjustment disordered patients.

Feminists were at the forefront of defending mothers who alienated children from fathers, using the pretense that the fathers who wanted access to their children were abusive, yet they offered no evidence to back up their claims. Quote from The Globe and Mail:

"Many feminists dismiss alienation as a claim fabricated by abusive fathers to maintain contact with children who are terrified of them, and control over the lives of their abused former partners."

Yet a study called Parental Alienation - Myths, Realities & Uncertainties: A Canadian Study, concluded that mothers were twice as likely to alienate children from their fathers:

Feminists, the Canadian media and the psychological establishment cannot, for the life of them, not explain why men commit suicide the most, when accounting for the disadvantages they face in Canadian society? Isn't this a bit suspicious?