The Roles of Adolescent Occupational Expectations and Preparation in Adult Suicide and Drug Poisoning Deaths within a Shifting Labor Market

Sociological research has long suggested that social forces—like the economy—contribute to suicide risks, but our understanding of how and why labor market shifts shape individual wellbeing and vulnerability to suicide has been challenging to specify. Building on recent theoretical advances on expectations and suicide, we investigate how expecting occupations that subsequently lose economic value contribute to suicide and drug poisoning mortality. We link adult mortality records to adolescent occupational expectations for a cohort of men that was exposed to a decline in labor market share and wages for predominantly blue-collar occupations during early adulthood. We find that adolescent men who expected these occupations had increased risks of suicide and drug poisoning mortality in adulthood, even when considering status attainment processes linked to how adolescents form their expectations. We examine the roles of high school occupational preparation and educational and occupational attainment in early adulthood, but an independent association between adolescent occupational expectations and death by suicide and drug poisoning in adulthood remains. Our findings have important implications for understanding how expectations and labor market uncertainty specifically, and social forces more generally, shape individual well-being and vulnerability to suicide and drug poisoning.