Number of suicides in Belgium 2006-2020
Gender and regional differences
Globally, suicide rates are significantly higher in the male population. Belgium is no exception, from 2006 to 2016, more than double the amount of men committed suicide compared to women. A suicide paradox is often referred to when talking about gender differences. While women have generally more suicidal thoughts than men, men tend to commit suicide more frequently.From a regional perspective, there were more casualties in the Flemish region than in the Walloon region in 2016. However, the region of Brussels registered the least casualties. That being said, the number of inhabitants of Belgium’s regions put these figures into perspective. In 2019, the Flemish region had more inhabitants than Wallonia and even more than the Brussels-Capital Region.