Approximately 227,000 women and girls die by suicide worldwide each year, based on 2021 estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study. That translates to roughly one female suicide every two and a half minutes. In the United States alone, 10,270 women died by suicide in 2023, at a rate of 5.9 per 100,000.
Global Numbers at a Glance
Of the 746,000 total suicide deaths recorded globally in 2021, about 30 percent were female. The overall global suicide rate has dropped significantly over the past three decades, falling from roughly 15 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to 9 per 100,000 in 2021. But those gains have not been evenly distributed across regions, age groups, or genders, and some populations of women have seen rates climb.
Why the Gender Gap Varies by Country
In wealthier nations, women die by suicide at about one-third the rate men do. In low- and middle-income countries, the gap narrows dramatically: women’s suicide rates are nearly equal to men’s. The female suicide rate in low- and middle-income countries is roughly 8.7 per 100,000, compared to 5.7 per 100,000 in high-income countries.
Every country where women have historically had equal or higher suicide rates than men is a low- or middle-income country, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iraq, and Pakistan. Research published in Social Science & Medicine found that laws restricting women’s access to financial assets, property, divorce, inheritance, or the justice system were linked to higher female-to-male suicide ratios. In other words, where legal and social systems limit women’s autonomy, the suicide gap between men and women shrinks or disappears entirely.
Rates in the United States
The U.S. female suicide rate climbed steadily from 4.2 per 100,000 in 2003 to a peak of 6.1 in 2017. It has since edged down slightly to 5.9 in both 2022 and 2023, translating to 10,270 deaths in the most recent year of data. Men still die by suicide at roughly four times the rate women do in the U.S., but the sustained increase over two decades among women drew attention from public health researchers.
Among American women 55 and older, suicide rates decrease with age: 7.8 per 100,000 for women aged 55 to 64, dropping to 5.6 for those 65 to 74, 4.8 for ages 75 to 84, and 3.3 for women 85 and older. This pattern is the opposite of what happens with men, where rates climb steeply with age. By age 85, the male suicide rate is nearly 17 times the female rate.
Rates in England and Wales
The female suicide rate in England and Wales held steady at 5.7 per 100,000 in both 2023 and 2024. Women aged 45 to 49 had the highest rate in 2024 at 7.9 per 100,000. In Wales specifically, the rate for women ticked upward from 6.3 to 6.8 per 100,000 between 2023 and 2024.
Rising Rates Among Young Women
Some of the sharpest increases in female suicide have occurred among adolescents and young women. In the United States, the suicide rate among girls and young women rose by an average of 6.7 percent per year between 2007 and 2017, before leveling off. In the United Kingdom, the trend was even steeper: an annual increase of 8.5 percent among young females beginning around 2012. These increases outpaced the corresponding rises among young males in both countries, narrowing a gender gap that had historically been wide in this age group.
Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among pregnant and recently postpartum women in the United States. A national study reviewing CDC data from 2005 to 2022 found that out of 20,421 deaths among pregnant people and those within the first 42 postpartum days, 11 percent were due to homicide or suicide combined. Of those, 39 percent (886 deaths over the 18-year period) were suicides. That works out to roughly 49 maternal suicides per year during pregnancy or the immediate postpartum weeks alone, and the true number is likely higher because the study only captured the first 42 days after delivery, not the full first year, when risk remains elevated.
Methods and Lethality
Women are more likely than men to use methods with lower case fatality rates, which is one reason the gap between suicide attempts and suicide deaths is so large for women. Poisoning with drugs or liquids, one of the most common methods among women, has a fatality rate of about 8 percent. By contrast, firearms have an 89.7 percent fatality rate, and hanging or suffocation is fatal in 84.5 percent of cases. The lethality of a given method does not differ meaningfully between men and women; what differs is how often each method is chosen. Women attempt suicide at higher rates than men in most countries, but because they more frequently use less immediately lethal methods, a smaller proportion of those attempts result in death.
Among older American women (ages 55 to 64), firearms, poisoning, and suffocation are the most common methods. As access to more lethal means increases in a population, the gap between attempt rates and death rates narrows.
What Drives Female Suicide Risk
The risk factors for suicide among women overlap with those for men (mental health conditions, substance use, financial stress, relationship crises) but several factors disproportionately affect women. Intimate partner violence, reproductive loss, postpartum depression, and caregiving burden all elevate risk. In low- and middle-income countries, forced marriage, lack of legal rights, and restricted economic independence contribute to higher rates. Social isolation, chronic pain, and prior suicide attempts are strong predictors regardless of gender, but women are more likely to have a history of attempts, making ongoing screening and access to mental health care especially important.