Teen Suicide and the Outcomes of Surviving Peers

Abstract

By age 17, a quarter of U.S. students have experienced a peer suicide, making it a common adverse experience of childhood. Using rich administrative data from South Carolina and school-matching models, we examine how a peer’s death by self-harm shapes teen outcomes. For boys, exposure leads to more self-harm–related diagnoses, lower rates of high school graduation, and greater involvement with the criminal justice system. For girls, it increases mental health diagnoses and the likelihood of arrest. These effects appear to operate mainly through externalizing behaviors, rather than internalizing ones such as depression or anxiety. The impacts are stronger when the deceased peer shares the same gender, race, or grade, consistent with a peer effects interpretation. They are also larger for self-harm deaths than for other causes of death, underscoring the uniquely traumatizing nature of suicide. Joint paper with Janet Currie, Elisa Jácome, and Lucy Manly.