South Korea's experiment

Mid-term exams at a South Korean middle school (Wikicommons - Samuel Orchard)



South Korea opened up to mail-order brides a quarter of a century ago. Most are from Southeast Asia (Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia), although some are ethnic Koreans from northeast China. Men outnumber women in South Korea, as they do elsewhere in East Asia, and the male surplus is even larger in rural areas because of the many women who move to cities for employment (Park 2011). 

As a result, 472,390 "multicultural marriages" were performed between 2000 and 2016 (Lim 2017). In 2005, the peak year, 13% of all marriages involved a foreign-born bride. This way of finding a bride has been especially popular in rural areas, where 40% of all couples are mixed (Park 2011). The offspring of these marriages "are expected to number over 1.6 million by 2020, with a third of all children born that year the offspring of international unions" (Lim 2011). In rural areas, this proportion is expected to be half of all children by 2020 (Park 2011).

Such children will increase both in absolute numbers and proportionately for three reasons. First, they are born mostly in rural areas, where incentives for childbearing are relatively high. Second, their mothers come from cultures where fertility is likewise relatively high. Third, Korean women have a very low fertility rate: only 0.98 children per woman in 2018.

South Korea is thus on track for rapid demographic replacement. This change is interesting not only because of its rapidity but also because it is happening in a country that differs considerably from Western Europe and North America in history and culture. Negative effects cannot be blamed on slavery, colonialism, or other chickens coming home to roost. Until the twentieth century the country kept to itself, to such a point that it was called "The Hermit Kingdom." There then followed Japanese rule, American occupation, and devastating war. Not until the 1980s did South Korea become truly advanced, and affluent.

So can South Korea change its population and remain advanced and affluent? This question is all the more relevant because the country has only one natural advantage in the global marketplace: its human capital.


Academic failure

In general, children of mixed parentage do badly at school: "The drop-out rate among mixed-blood youths is estimated at 9.4% in elementary schools and 17.5% at the secondary level, compared with less than 3% among ordinary Korean youths" (Kang 2010).

This poor performance is usually put down to the mother's poor language skills. "Because their mothers have difficulty in speaking and writing Korean, these children may be making slow progress in language development in comparison to the Korean children" (Kang 2010). If this explanation is correct, such children should do worse in subjects that demand much social interaction and language use. Conversely, they should do better in subjects that require abstract skills, like mathematics, or memorization of names and dates, like social studies. This is, in fact, the pattern we see in children of East Asian immigrants in North America.

But this is not the pattern we see in children born in South Korea to non-Korean mothers: "Their favourite subjects are music/painting/physical education (42.6%), while they dislike math (38.1%), social studies (19.2%) and Korean (12.7%)" (Kang 2010). The learning deficit seems to be strongest in those subjects that require the most abstraction and memorization.

Moreover, a study conducted over several months found that these children do not have language problems that can be traced to deficient learning at home from their mothers: "This study revealed that multicultural children did not exhibit any difficulty in communicating with others in everyday Korean but that they had varying degrees of academic vocabulary mastery" (Shin 2018). So the problem is not with learning of normal spoken language at home but with learning of specialized terminology at school. The study's author concluded: “This finding then raises the questions of why the simplified discourse about multicultural children's deficiency in Korean has been easily accepted as true in society and who benefits from the (re)production of the idea that they need special care, particularly regarding Korean language instruction” (Shin 2018).


Non-compliance with social rules

Koreans are expected to show a high level of compliance with social rules. These rules may apply to everyone (e.g., wearing seatbelts) or only to students (e.g., no smoking, mandatory hand washing). Compliance seems to be weaker in children of foreign-born mothers, as suggested by lower rates of hand washing and wearing of seatbelts and higher rates of smoking (Yi and Kim 2017).


Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts

Children of mixed parentage are more likely to contemplate and attempt suicide, but this seems to be related more to decreased self-control than to increased depression or stress. Kim et al. (2015) concluded: "There was no significant difference in the levels of depression, self-reported happiness, and self-reported stress between adolescents from multicultural and monocultural families. However, suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt were significantly higher in adolescents from multicultural families."


Violence and hyperactivity

Children of mixed parentage also show higher levels of hostility, fear, anxiety, and anger (Moon and An 2011). Between the ages of 5 and 12 years they are more likely to engage in hyperactive behaviors, as rated by their teachers (Park and Nam 2010). Finally, between the ages of 11 and 13 years they are more prone to delinquency and aggression (Lee et al. 2018).

On the other hand, Yu and Kim (2015) found higher incidences of violence at school and non-compliance with rules (smoking, drug use, alcohol use, sexual activity) only in children of foreign-born fathers and native-born mothers. Children of foreign-born mothers and native-born fathers were behaviorally similar to children of native-born mothers and native-born fathers. It is true that the other studies lump all “multicultural” children together, making no distinction between those with foreign-born mothers and those with foreign-born fathers. However, the second group is much smaller than the first—too small to explain the differing results. This may be seen in the study by Yu and Kim (2015), which had 88 binational children of foreign-born fathers versus 622 of foreign-born mothers.

The findings of Yu and Kim (2015) also run counter to the standard acculturation model. A child normally has a stronger bond with its mother than with its father, so a child should better assimilate Korean behavioral norms if its mother is Korean than if its mother is non-Korean. But here we see the reverse.


Conclusion

The most robust finding is that children of mixed parentage do poorly at school. The reason is commonly said to be poor language skills, yet the pattern of academic failure is actually the opposite of what that explanation would predict. Moreover, these children seem to have no trouble with everyday spoken Korean. Their problem is with specialized vocabulary that is normally learned at school and not at home.

Children of mixed parentage also seem to be less compliant with rules and more prone to violence and hyperactivity. This was the finding of three out of four studies. The underlying cause may be weaker mechanisms for self-control, self-discipline, and internalization of social rules. This factor may also play a role in the higher incidences of suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts.

In the academic literature, these findings are explained in terms of normal versus abnormal development. Children of mixed parentage are said to develop abnormally because they are more interested in music and physical education than in math. Their higher levels of violence and hyperactivity are explained the same way.  But what if they had been assessed in their mothers' home countries? Would they still seem so abnormal? On a global level, few societies expect the degree of academic nerdiness that Koreans expect of themselves. 

Better research is needed. My first suggestion: provide data on ethnicity. It’s not enough to distinguish between "native-born" and "foreign-born." A foreign-born mother could be an ethnic Korean from China who has more in common with a native-born mother. There may also be significant behavioral differences among binational children depending on which Southeast Asian country the mother comes from. The relevant factor is really ethnicity and not place of birth.

This factor may explain why children are less violent when they have foreign mothers and Korean fathers than when they have Korean mothers and foreign fathers. The foreigners are ethnically different in the two cases. In the first case, they are Southeast Asians. In the second case, they are either U.S. servicemen or migrant laborers who come not only from Southeast Asia but also from South Asia, Southwest Asia, and Africa.

My second suggestion: do not frame the issue solely in terms of "acculturation." i.e., insufficient learning by children of Korean culture, particularly the Korean language. This is not to say that acculturation is never a causal factor, but rather that it is assumed to be the only one, even to the point of misrepresenting reality.

Yes, culture does matter, but it interacts with other factors, including genetic ones. Humans everywhere have had to adapt to their cultural environment—more so, in fact, than to their natural environment—and this has been no less true for the Korean people. To survive in a highly complex and demanding culture, they have had to acquire certain mental capabilities:

- high cognitive ability (mean IQ of 106)

- high self-control

- high degree of compliance with social rules

- low time preference and, correspondingly, strong future-oriented thinking

- strong inhibition of violence, which can be released only if permitted by social rules

All of these mental capabilities have moderate to high heritability and are no less real than the more visible aspects of the human body, like gender, skin color, and body height. They exist because they have enabled Koreans to survive and flourish in a specific cultural environment

The Korean people have achieved a high standard of living through their knowledge, foresight, and self-discipline—qualities that are the outcome of a long process of gene-culture coevolution. Generation after generation of their ancestors have had to adapt to the demands of a harsh cultural environment, this adaptation being bought at a high price: the success of some individuals and the failure of many more. This is why Koreans traditionally revere their ancestors.

All of this has been gained through much effort over many generations, but it can all be lost in one or two. To do or to undo—which do you think is easier?   


References

Kang, S.W. (2010). Multicultural education and the rights to education of migrant children in South Korea. Educational Review 62(3): 287-300.
https://books.google.ca/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=sgnKAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA37&ots=IcekxniSRj&sig=vQ-YWHSlouQuzFor5zP9OOkucsg#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Kim, J-M., B-G. Kong, J-W. Kang, J.-J. Moon, D.-W. Jeon, E.-C. Kang, H.-B. Ju, Y.-H. Lee, and D.-U. Jung. (2015). Comparative Study of Adolescents' Mental Health between Multicultural Family and Monocultural Family in Korea. Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 26(4): 279-287.
https://www.e-sciencecentral.org/articles/SC000022127

Lee, J.S., J.M. Kim, and A.R. Ju. (2018). A structural analysis on the effects of children's parentification in multicultural families on their psychological maladjustment - comparison with children in monocultural families. Journal of the Korea Institute of Youth Facility and Environment 16:117-130.
https://www.earticle.net/Article/A329970 

Lim, T. (2011). Korea's multicultural future? The Diplomat, July 20
https://thediplomat.com/2011/07/south-koreas-multiethnic-future/

Lim, T. (2017). The road to multiculturalism in South Korea. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, October 10
https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/2017/10/10/the-road-to-multiculturalism-in-south-korea 

Moon SH, and H.J. An (2011). Anger, anger expression, mental health and psychosomatic symptoms of children in multi-cultural families. Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 20(4): 325-333.
https://synapse.koreamed.org/DOIx.php?id=10.12934/jkpmhn.2011.20.4.325

Park, S. (2011). Korean Multiculturalism and the Marriage Squeeze. Contexts 10: 64-65.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504211418459 

Park, J.H., and J.S. Nam (2010). The language development and psychosocial adjustment of multicultural children. Studies on Korean Youth. 21:129-152.

Yi, Y., and J-S. Kim. (2017). Korean Adolescents' Health Behavior and Psychological Status according to Their Mother's Nationality. Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives 8(6): 377-383.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749486/ 

Shin, J. (2018). Minority youth's mastery of academic vocabulary and its implications for their educational achievements: the case of 'multicultural adolescents' in South Korea. Multicultural Education Review 10(1): 35-51,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2005615X.2018.1423539 

Yu, J-O, and M. Sung Kim. (2015). A Study on the Health Risk Behaviors of Adolescents from Multicultural Families according to the Parents' Migration Background. Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 26(3):190-198
https://synapse.koreamed.org/DOIx.php?id=10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.3.190

South Korea: the ugly side of Westernization

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in OECD countries, and the highest rate of elderly suicide in the world

A major challenge for cultural evolution has been the creation of larger and more complex societies that bring together people who are not necessarily close kin or even acquaintances. This challenge has most successfully been met in two culture areas: Europe, especially northwest Europe, and East Asia. 

In both areas there have been certain mental/behavioral adjustments:

- A lower propensity for personal violence: The State has imposed a monopoly on violence, and such behavior is no longer a legitimate way by men to advance their personal interests or to impress other people, especially women.

- A higher capacity for cognitive empathy: people are better able to understand how others feel.

- A higher propensity for rule adherence: people are not only more aware of social rules but also more willing to comply.

- A higher level of cognitive ability: greater ability to think, to store knowledge, and to use  knowledge (Rindermann 2018, p. 43).

Some of these adjustments are relatively recent, whereas others go back to prehistoric times. In the latter case, one can say that these two culture areas were pre-adapted for the transition to larger and more complex societies.

Although Europeans and East Asians have created larger and more complex societies in similar ways, there have also been significant differences. Cultural evolution has thus followed somewhat different paths to achieve a similar result. Among Europeans, it has also relied on:

- A higher capacity for affective empathy: people not only understand how others feel but also transfer those feelings to themselves, i.e., there is a greater tendency to feel the other person's pain. In most humans, affective empathy is largely expressed in relations between a mother and her children. In Europeans, and especially northwest Europeans, this capacity is generalized to all social relations and deactivated only if the other person is perceived as being morally worthless. 

- A higher capacity for guilt proneness: people feel guilty and self-punish if they break a social rule, even if nobody else witnessed the wrongdoing.

- A more independent social orientation: more individualism, weaker kinship ties, stronger motivation toward self-expression, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.

Among East Asians, this cultural evolution has instead relied on:

- Less individualism, rather than more, and even higher capacities for cognitive empathy and rule adherence. 

These two internal tendencies work in conjunction with external means of behavior control (shaming, family discipline, community surveillance, appeals to moral duty). The self therefore has a different relationship with society. Whereas a greater sense of self has helped Europeans to transcend the limitations of kinship and, thus, build larger societies, East Asians have relied on a lesser sense of self to create a web of interdependence that extends beyond close kin. Their relationship between self and society puts more emphasis on social happiness, rather than personal happiness, and less emphasis on self-expression, self-esteem, and self-efficacy (Frost 2015; Frost 2017; Kitayama et al. 2014; Talhelm et al. 2014).

Because East Asian societies rely more on external means of behavior control, they are more vulnerable to the negative effects of Westernization, particularly its emphasis on individualism, maximization of personal autonomy, and personal happiness as a supreme life goal.

Elder abuse and elderly suicide

"Filial piety" is one of the pillars of East Asian cultures. It is the obligation of adult children "to obey, respect, care for, and support their older parents both emotionally and financially" (Yan and Fang 2017, p. 477). Care for elderly parents is thus driven by a different mix of motives in East Asian societies: "While American caregivers cited love and affection more frequently [...], Korean caregivers emphasized that their motivations were primarily based on filial responsibility, strongly influenced by the Confucian sentiment, including three core values: (1) respect for parents, (2) family harmony, and (3) sacrifice for parents" (Chee and Levkoff 2001).

As in Europe, this sort of traditional value has survived better under socialist regimes: "in the PRC, filial piety is still characterized by parental authority and absolute submission. 'Talking back' to parents is viewed as a serious offense" (Yan and Fang 2017, p. 478). In contrast, adult children are less submitted to their parents in Hong Kong and Taiwan: "young people today [...] tend to speak less respectfully to their parents, using language often considered verbal abuse by elders." In Hong Kong and Taiwan, adult children are increasingly following the Western model of putting their elderly parents into retirement homes (Yan and Fang 2017, p. 478).

Westernization is even more advanced in South Korea, and it is in this country that the situation of the elderly has deteriorated the most in relation to other age groups economically, socially, and psychologically. One example of this malaise has been a sharp increase in elderly suicide: "South Korea's elderly suicide rate is not merely the highest among the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, it is the highest in the world" (Cha and Lee 2017). Elderly suicide largely explains the country's high suicide rate:

In South Korea, the rate of suicide mortality has climbed since 1985, reaching over 30 per 100,000 person-years lived (PYL) in 2010. As a result of these trends, South Korea and Japan now exhibit the two highest rates of suicide mortality among all OECD countries. [...] Previous research has emphasized high suicide rates among the elderly as well as cohort effects as the main reasons for the steep rise in suicide mortality rates in South Korea over the past 20 years. [...] suicide rates appear poised to increase even further in the future without urgent public health action. (Jeon et al. 2016)

Today, half of South Korea's elderly live in poverty. They typically have little contact with their children. With meager financial support from them or the State, they have to work as security guards, cleaners, and trash collectors. A recent report describes an 86-year-old trash collector and the reasons for her poverty:

Mdm Yim worked hard to support five children, even sending one of them to university. But they all moved away to other cities once they got married, and three years ago, her husband died, leaving her once again without real family support.

"When my daughters visit, they come all at once, then they all leave. My grandchildren are afraid to visit me — they complain about the cockroaches in my place. I get so lonely and bored," she said with a humourless laugh.

[...] This self-condemning attitude perhaps also fueled another problem: The erosion of traditional social values in a Korean society built on confucianism and filial piety. (Shushan 2017)

Discussion

Larger and more complex societies developed in Europe, especially north and west of the Hajnal Line, thanks to a peculiar mix of mental and behavioral traits: stronger individualism, weaker kinship ties, and higher levels of affective empathy and guilt proneness. This mix helped to bring market economies into being, and the success of this form of social and economic organization has, in turn, encouraged Western Europeans to push the envelope of individualism even farther. We're much more individualistic today than we were even a half-century ago. Is this sustainable? Probably not.

But what about non-Western societies that have adopted the Western model? Our hyper-individualism will be even less sustainable for them. This is particularly so for South Korea, which has embraced the Western model not only economically but also socially and culturally—in large part because of its special relationship with the United States. One consequence has been the collapse of filial piety. South Koreans are only now realizing that the Western model of individualism requires a generous system of old-age pensions. In a post-traditional, egocentric society why take care of aging parents?

Modern Western culture has other consequences. It dissolves the traditional supports for family formation and childbearing, as is painfully evident in South Korea. The fertility rate is now 1.2 children per woman, and many of those children are born to migrant mothers from Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The population is thus rapidly aging at a time when its elderly need much more financial support from younger taxpayers:

South Korea faces the problem of a rapidly aging population. In fact, the speed of aging in Korea is unprecedented in human history […] the percentage of elderly aged 65 and above, has sharply risen from 3.3% in 1955 to 10.7% in 2009. The shape of its population has changed from a pyramid in the 1990s, with more young people and fewer old people, to a diamond shape in 2010, with less young people and a large proportion of middle-age individuals. (Wikipedia 2018a)

I suspect that elderly suicide will be legalized in South Korea, just as it has been in many Western countries.

South Korea is also opening up to immigration, ostensibly to counter the problem of low fertility but really to provide employers with low-wage labor, particularly in agriculture. As of 2016, foreign residents made up 3.4% of the total population (Wikipedia 2018b). This figure understates the full extent of ethnic replacement because it excludes undocumented immigrants, foreigners who have become South Korean citizens, and children of "multicultural marriages" (who automatically acquire citizenship). The immigrant population is also much younger.

One curious result of all these changes is that traditional Korean culture is now much more intact on the other side of the DMZ. This is ironic because North Korea, like other socialist regimes, was founded on a project of radical social reform, including abolition of religion and the traditional family. Yet, today, if you wish to see a traditional society, particularly one that has achieved an advanced stage of social development, you're better off going to a former socialist country, or a bitter hold-out like North Korea.

North Korea's fertility rate is 1.98, just below the replacement level. In fifty years the North will still be recognizably Korean. Will the same be true for the South?

References

Cha, K.S. and H.S. Lee. (2017). The effects of ego-resilience, social support, and depression on suicidal ideation among the elderly in South Korea. Journal of Women & Aging, April 28

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08952841.2017.1313023  

Chee, Y.K. and S.E. Levkoff. (2001). Culture and dementia: Accounts by family caregivers and health professionals for dementia-affected elders in South Korea. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 16(2): 111-125.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1010640527713  

Frost, P. (2015). Two paths. The Unz Review, January 14

http://www.unz.com/pfrost/two-paths/

Frost, P. (2017). The Hajnal line and gene-culture coevolution in northwest Europe. Advances in Anthropology 7: 154-174.

http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2017082915090955.pdf  

Frost, P. and H. Harpending. (2015). Western Europe, state formation, and genetic pacification, Evolutionary Psychology 13: 230-243.

http://evp.sagepub.com/content/13/1/147470491501300114.abstract  

Jeon, S.Y., E.N. Reither, and R.K. Masters. (2016). A population-based analysis of increasing rates of suicide mortality in Japan and South Korea. BMC Public Health 16: 356.

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3020-2 

Kitayama, S., A. King, C. Yoon, S. Tompson, S. Huff, and I. Liberzon. (2014). The Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene (DRD4) Moderates Cultural Difference in Independent Versus Interdependent Social Orientation. Psychological Science 25: 1169-1177. 
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/6/1169.short

Rindermann, H. (2018). Cognitive Capitalism. Human Capital and the Wellbeing of Nations. Cambridge University Press.

Shushan, L. (2017). Poor and on their own, South Korea's elderly who will 'work until they die' Channel NewsAsia, March 19

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/poor-and-on-their-own-south-korea-s-elderly-who-will--work-until-8577758  

Talhelm, T., X. Zhang, S. Oishi, C. Shimin, D. Duan, X. Lan, and S. Kitayama. (2014). Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science 344: 603-607. 
http://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/RiceversusWheatScience-2014-Talhelm-603-8.pdf  

Wikipedia (2018a). Demographics of South Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea  

Wikipedia (2018b). Immigration to South Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_South_Korea#Temporary_workers_and_illegal_immigrants 

Yan, E. and G. Fang. (2017). Elder Abuse and Neglect in Asia. In X. Dong (ed.) Elder Abuse: Research, Practice and Policy, pp. 477-493, Springer.

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=Qoo0DgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA476&ots=M3qaWb8081&sig=f6sra3C2eJmUN0_X8UvxJ4z09Bk#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wishing to end it all

Inupiat family (Wikicommons). In traditional Inuit society, people had a desire to live if they were socially active. Conversely, social inactivity seemed to set off a cascade of mental events leading to suicide.

Until 10,000 years ago, humans lived in small groups of hunter-gatherers. This was a "thick" social environment where everyone interacted intensely with a relatively small number of people. These interactions were not only recurrent but also predictable, being constrained and structured by social rules. 

With the advent of farming, and the population growth it made possible, the social environment became "thinner": everyone now interacted with more people but less frequently on average with each person. These interactions were also less predictable. With the development of large urban communities and, even more so, the market economy, interaction became especially infrequent, unstructured, and voluntary.

This distinction between "thick" and "thin" social environments corresponds more or less to the German dichotomy of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, except that the dichotomy is really a continuum. Social interaction has become especially “thin” in one group of populations, northwest Europeans, through a process of cultural evolution that goes back at least a millennium. Indeed, some authors have argued that this process goes even farther back, perhaps even into prehistory (Frost 2017; Macfarlane 1978; 1992, 2002; and Seccombe 1992).

Given that over the past 10,000 years our genetic makeup has been adapting much more to cultural and social environments than to natural environments (Hawks et al. 2007), adaptation to "thin" social environments should vary from one population to another, being least advanced in those people who, until recently, were hunter-gatherers, i.e., who intensely interacted with a limited number of people. Such people would show the most mismatch between past and present environments.

In a previous post I argued that such a mismatch may explain the high rate of suicide among Inuit youth (Frost 2011). According to a 1972 survey of Inuit 15 to 24 years old from northern Quebec, 28% of the males and 25% of the females had attempted suicide (Kirmayer et al., 1998). Dufour (1994) argues that Inuit society has a long tradition of people ending their lives when they feel they have become useless. In the past, however, suicide involved only the elderly:

Suicide in early Inuit society was viewed positively when the individual had become a burden for the group. "Senilicide" in particular was deemed to be acceptable and appropriate. Its pattern: a usually elderly person motivated by illness, helplessness, bereavement, dependence on the group, famine, or resource shortage who would decide after consulting family members who sometimes could be called upon to assist. In contemporary Inuit society, the elderly no longer commit suicide. The young people do.

In a forthcoming paper, anthropologist Frédéric Laugrand similarly argues that in traditional Inuit society the elderly did not fear death and would even welcome it if they considered themselves no longer useful. Birket-Smith (1929, p. 300) wrote: "Suicide is not rare, and it is the duty of pious children to assist their parents in committing it." Knud Rasmussen (1929, p. 96) described a visit to a sick Inuit woman: 

I straightened myself up [inside the hut] and went across at once to the spot where the sick woman used to lie. On coming nearer, I nearly cried out aloud: I found myself looking into a face that was perfectly blue, with a pair of great eyes projecting right out from the head, and the mouth wide open. I stood there a little to pull myself together, and now perceived a line fastened round the old woman's neck and from there to the roof of the hut. When I was able to speak once more, I asked those in the house what this meant. It was a long time before anyone answered. At last the son-in-law spoke up, and said: 'She felt that she was old, and having begun to spit up blood, she wished to die quickly, and I agreed. I only made the line fast to the roof, the rest she did herself.'

The Moon Spirit was said to help people commit suicide by calling out to them: "Come, come to me! It is not painful to die. It is only a brief moment of dizziness. It does not hurt to kill yourself" (Rasmussen 1929, p. 74). The literature on the Inuit is replete with examples of this and related customs. When a travelling family had run out of food and were facing starvation, the oldest members would offer their flesh as food, after death, so that the others might live. This kind of request appears in an account about a group of travelling Inuit who ran out of food in 1905, near Igloolik.

When he sensed his coming death, Qumangaapik said to his wife, 'It has already happened in the past, in times of starvation, that people survived by feeding on human flesh. When I die, I want you to eat my body to survive, for you have many relatives.' She refused his offer, but he insisted, 'Please, you'll have to eat me!'

The inhabitants of Kangiqsualujjuaq (George River) have similar memories about a family who faced starvation on their way to the Labrador coast. They had used up all of their reserves of food, and the grandmother convinced the other family members to let her die and then eat her to ensure their survival. She told them that if they respected her wishes, they would have an abundant posterity to preserve her memory (Saladin d'Anglure, forthcoming).

It is understandable why the elderly might wish to commit suicide. When they have become a burden, their deaths will free up food and other resources for their children. This is especially so in times of famine, which was common in the Arctic. But who benefits when young people kill themselves? Something about modern society is sending Inuit youth the wrong signal.

Inuit seem to receive this signal when they becomes socially inactive for a length of time. There then develops a feeling of uselessness, and this feeling in turn triggers suicidal ideation. Previously, this cascade of mental events happened only in old people who could no longer help with hunting, food preparation, shelter building, or other strenuous activities. Such people would stay home most of the time. Saladin d'Anglure (forthcoming) recounts the story of an old shaman who could no longer get around. He shrank the outside world to the different parts of his igloo: the sleeping platform became the land, the floor the sea ice, the ice window the sun, the opening for the entrance the moon, and the dome the vault of the heavens. For elderly Inuit, this shrinking of their world foreshadows their departure for the next one.

Today, many young Inuit likewise stay home and become socially inactive. What else is there to do? On the one hand, the old economy of hunting and living on the land no longer exists. On the other hand, the new economy doesn't generate enough employment. There is also the trouble that Inuit have adapting to the Western model of working outside the family with non-kin for lengthy periods of time. For mine work, two or three weeks is the maximum they can stand being away from their families.

Conclusion

Social inactivity seems to trigger thoughts of suicide among the Inuit and, I suspect, among former hunter-gatherers in general. Once a hunter-gatherer people had transitioned to farming and hence to a larger and “thinner” social environment, selection would then raise the threshold for this trigger. Many factors probably decide how high the threshold is raised: the recentness of this transition and, more importantly, how far the population has gone down the path to a “thinner” social environment. Social networks can be relatively “thick” even in large urban settings.

In any case, no human population has fully adapted to the asocial environment we increasingly have in the Western world. Widespread asociality is recent, even in the West. 

All of this makes me wonder whether the “White Death” is due to something deeper than the opioid epidemic. When I visit my hometown the biggest change I notice is the large number of people who live alone, particularly men in their 40s and 50s—as a result of easy divorce and relationships that never went anywhere. Most of them work, and when they’re not working they drink or get stoned. When the inevitable happens, is it due to alcohol or drug abuse? Or is the ultimate cause a death wish?

References

Birket-Smith, K. (1929). The Caribou Eskimos. Material and social life and their cultural position, Copenhagen: Gyldendal

Dufour, R. (1994). Pistes de recherche sur les sens du suicide des adolescents inuit, Santé mentale au Québec 19: 145-162.

https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/smq/1994-v19-n2-smq1823/032318ar/abstract/

Frost, P. (2017). The Hajnal line and gene-culture coevolution in northwest Europe, Advances in Anthropology 7: 154-174.

http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2017082915090955.pdf

Frost,P. (2011). Suicide and Inuit youth, Evo and Proud, December 10

http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2011/12/suicide-and-inuit-youth.html

Hawks, J., E.T. Wang, G.M. Cochran, H.C. Harpending, and R.K. Moyzis. (2007). Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 104: 20753-20758.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Henry_Harpending/publication/5761823_Recent_Acceleration_of_Human_Adaptive_Evolution/links/0c9605240c4bb57b55000000.pdf 

Kirmayer, L.J., L.J. Boothroyd, S. Hodgins (1998). Attempted suicide among Inuit youth: Psychosocial correlates and implications for prevention, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 43: 816-822.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/070674379804300806

Macfarlane, A. (1978). The origins of English individualism: Some surprises. Theory and Society 6: 255-277.

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/Origins_HI.pdf 

Macfarlane, A. (1992). On individualism. Proceedings of the British Academy 82: 171-199. 

https://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/82p171.pdf

Macfarlane, A. (2002). The making of the modern world. London: Palgrave.

http://alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/end_making.pdf

Rasmussen, K. (1929). Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos, Vol. 7 (1) of Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, Copenhagen, Gyldendalske Boghandel.

Saladin d'Anglure, B. (forthcoming). Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth, University of Manitoba Press.

Seccombe, W. (1992). A Millennium of Family Change. Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe. London: Verso.

Suicide and Inuit youth

Canadian suicide rates (per 100,000 people): Inuit, First Nations, all Canadians. Source

From Alaska to Greenland, young Inuit have unusually high rates of suicide, attempted suicide, and suicidal ideation. According to a 1972 survey of Inuit 15 to 24 years old from northern Quebec, 28% of the males and 25% of the females had attempted suicide (Kirmayer et al., 1998). Before the 1970s, suicide was rare among Inuit youth. Today, it has reached epidemic proportions.

Public authorities have responded largely by targeting those factors, like alcohol and drug abuse, that make it easier to go from thinking about suicide to actually doing it. While these efforts are having some success, there still remains the problem of suicidal ideation.

Why do so many Inuit youth contemplate suicide? Kirmayer et al. (1998) point to a prevailing sense of uselessness:

Inuit youth are confronted with the values of an individualistic, consumption-oriented society through mass media but have few opportunities to achieve the life-style portrayed. The result may be a sense of frustration, limited options, and difficulty imagining an optimistic future. This may extend to an impaired sense of self-continuity that contributes to attempted suicide.

Dufour (1994) argues that Inuit society has a long tradition of people ending their lives when they feel they have become useless. In the past, however, this kind of suicide involved only the elderly:

Suicide in early Inuit society was viewed positively when the individual had become a burden for the group. “Senilicide” in particular was deemed to be acceptable and appropriate. Its pattern: a usually elderly person motivated by illness, helplessness, bereavement, dependence on the group, famine, or resource shortage who would decide after consulting family members who sometimes could be called upon to assist. In contemporary Inuit society, the elderly no longer commit suicide. The young people do.

TV and video present young Inuit with an affluent lifestyle that is unattainable for all but a few. Meanwhile, school presents learning goals and standards of behavior that are likewise difficult to attain, especially for boys. By postponing adulthood in order to extend the learning process, school also has the unintended effect of humiliating Inuit youth. In another age, they were treated as young adults, often being parents in their own right. Today, they are just “children.”

Many young Inuit thus perceive themselves as being socially useless. And this self-perception is triggering suicidal ideation.

Such ideation may seem irrational from an individualistic Western standpoint. You cannot make your life better by ending it. Yet it is less irrational from the standpoint of one’s kin group, especially in a context of limited resources. Such was the case with elderly Inuit who would choose death so as not to burden the younger members of their band, such people being close relatives for the most part.

In such a context, natural selection—specifically kin selection—might have favored suicide as a response to perceived uselessness. Such selection is possible. Suicidal ideation is significantly heritable and seems to be inherited as a specific behavioral response:

Suicidal behavior is highly familial, and on the basis of twin and adoption studies, heritable as well. Both completed and attempted suicide form part of the clinical phenotype that is familially transmitted, as rates of suicide attempt are elevated in the family members of suicide completers, and completion rates are elevated in the family members of attempters. A family history of suicidal behavior is associated with suicidal behavior in the proband, even after adjusting for presence of psychiatric disorders in the proband and family, indicating transmission of attempt that is distinct from family transmission of psychiatric disorder. (Brent & Mann, 2005)

According to a twin study using American subjects, suicidal ideation has 36% heritability and suicide attempt 17% heritability (Fu et al., 2002).

De Catanzaro (1991, 1995) has argued that suicidal ideation has evolved as a response to a situation where an individual has become a burden to immediate kin. In studies of the general public and high-risk groups (elderly and psychiatric patients), he found that the strongest correlate of suicidal ideation was burdensomeness to family and, for males, lack of heterosexual activity. As Buss (1999, p. 94) concludes: “If a person is a burden to his or her family, for example, then the kin’s reproduction, and hence the person’s own fitness might suffer as a result of his or her survival.”

The threshold for suicidal ideation may be lower in some human populations than in others, depending on one’s risk of becoming a serious burden on kinfolk. This risk is high in Arctic hunting bands because their members are almost entirely close kin and because their nomadic lifestyle limits food storage for lean times. When food is scarce, who eats and who doesn’t? The question is especially difficult because close kin are involved. The easiest solution, in terms of keeping the peace and maintaining group cohesion, is one where the burdensome individual voluntarily bows out.

What does all of this mean for young Inuit who are thinking of suicide? Clearly, it is not enough to focus on things that facilitate the transition from suicidal ideation to actual suicide. That approach might work in southern Canada, where suicide tends to result from transient episodes that push people up and over the threshold of suicidal ideation. Among the Inuit, the threshold seems to be lower and the focus should be more on preventing ideation, specifically by giving young Inuit a greater feeling of self-worth and social usefulness.

References

Brent, D.A. & J.J. Mann. (2005). Family genetic studies, suicide, and suicidal behavior, American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 133C, 13-24.

Buss, D.M. (1999). Evolutionary Psychology. The New Science of the Mind, Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

de Catanzaro, D. (1991). Evolutionary limits to self-preservation, Ethology and Sociobiology, 12, 13-28.

de Catanzaro, D. (1995). Reproductive status, family interactions, and suicidal ideation: Surveys of the general public and high-risk group, Ethology and Sociobiology, 16, 385-394.

Dufour, R. (1994). Pistes de recherche sur les sens du suicide des adolescents inuit, Santé mentale au Québec, 19, 145-162.

Fu, Q., A.C. Heath, K.K. Bucholz, E.C. Nelson, A.L. Glowinski, J. Goldberg, M.J. Lyons, M.T. Tsuang, T. Jacob, M.R. True & S.A. Eisen. (2002). A twin study of genetic and environmental influences on suicidality in men, Psychological Medicine, 32, 11-24.

Kirmayer, L.J., L.J. Boothroyd, S. Hodgins (1998). Attempted Suicide among Inuit youth: Psychosocial correlates and implications for prevention, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 43, 816–822.