Suicide rates among people in same-sex relationships have fallen since the legalisation of gay marriage in Sweden and Denmark, a study has found.
The joint research by the Danish Research Institute for Suicide Prevention and Stockholm University compared suicide rates for people in same-sex and heterosexual relationships in the periods 1989-2002 and 2003-16.
Researchers found the number of suicides among people in same-sex partnerships fell by 46 per cent, while there was a 28 per cent decline in the number of suicides by people in heterosexual relationships.
In 1989, Denmark became the first country to allow same-sex civil partnerships while Sweden followed six years later. Same-sex marriage became legal in Sweden in 2009 and Denmark in 2012.
Annette Erlangsen, the study's lead author told Thomson Reuters Foundation: "Being married is protective against suicide."
But she pointed out the study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, still showed that more than twice as many people in same-sex marriages and unions killed themselves than those in opposite-sex marriages.
"Of course, it is positive to see that the suicide rate has almost halved. But it remains worryingly high, especially considering that the suicide rate may be higher among non-married people,” she told the Danish newspaper Information.
A 2018 study discovered homosexual young people are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers.
