Daily wage earners 31% of all suicide deaths in 2024, highest in a decade: NCRB | India News
New Delhi: Daily wage earners accounted for 31% of all suicide deaths in 2024, the highest share in a decade (2015-2024), according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. A total of 52,910 daily wage earners died by suicide during the year, marking a sharp increase from the previous high of 26.4% recorded in 2022.Casual workers, a category that mainly includes daily wage earners, constitute about one-fifth of India’s total workforce and are the largest. The total number of suicide deaths in the country will be 1.7 lakh in 2024, as against 1.34 lakh in 2015.
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A comparative analysis of suicide deaths since 2015 shows that daily wage earners, housewives and self-employed continue to account for the three largest categories under “occupational suicide victims”. However, suicide rates among housewives and the self-employed have declined over the past decade.Similarly, the share of suicide deaths among people engaged in the agricultural sector has declined from 8.7% in 2016 to 6.2% in 2024. In 2016, NCRB’s report on accidental deaths and suicides introduced the agriculture division.According to the 2024 NCRB report, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of suicides among daily wage earners at 10,556 – nearly one-fifth of all such deaths in the country – followed by Maharashtra (6,811), Telangana (5,745), Madhya Pradesh (5,299) and Chhattisgarh (3,411). Among Union Territories, Delhi reported the highest number of such deaths at 343.The report also noted that 62.9% of suicide victims in 2024 – about 1.1 lakh individuals – had an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh. Among the causes of suicide, “family problems” remained the leading cause, accounting for 35% of all deaths, followed by “illness” at 17.9%.The leading means of death by suicide were hanging (62.3%), poisoning (24.5%), drowning (4.4%) and falling under a moving vehicle or train (2.5%).
