Musicians have one of the highest suicide rates in the world because the music business contains so many difficulties such as intense touring, performance anxiety and low earnings, researchers have suggested.
The finding that unusually large numbers of musicians take their own lives show that “the music industry is a profoundly dangerous place”, according to a co-author of the study.
Dr George Musgrave, a sociologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “The statistics are alarming – shocking. The rates of suicide among musicians which we reveal in this new research paints a picture of a music industry which is demonstrably unsafe.
“No other industry would tolerate this level of loss of life and neither should we. The industry needs to get its house in order to confront levels of mortality which are profoundly upsetting and need to be tackled.”
Musgrave’s study, published in the journal Frontiers of Public Health, found that musicians in England had the fourth highest suicide rate of any occupational group in England, behind construction workers, building finishing tradespeople and agricultural workers.
“Those working as musicians, actors and entertainers were the highest-risk group within the occupational group defined [by the Office for National Statistics] as culture, media and sport occupations, in which overall the suicide rate for males was 20% higher than the male average and for females was 69% higher,” says the report, which was co-authored by Dr Dorian Lamis, a psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
They found a similar picture in the US. The arts, design, entertainment, sports and media category, which includes musicians, had the highest female suicide rate of any occupation group in 2012, 2015 and 2021. And men in that category had the third highest rate, at 138.7 per 100,000 population, which was almost 10 times higher than the national average.
Musgrave, who was once signed to Sony Music as a rapper, said: “Occupational mortality data in the US and the UK should make all of us who love and care about music stop and pause.”
He dismissed as a “myth” the idea that the high suicide rate in the music industry could be because “artists are troubled, brooding, dark, mysterious, mad and, by extension, in extremis, perhaps, suicidal.”
The research highlighted an array of risk factors for musicians, including high levels of anxiety and depression, economic insecurity, a quest for perfection in their output, stressful life events that may have inspired their creativity, and loneliness as well as the stress of performing in public and receiving attention on social media.
According to a 2023 survey by the Musicians’ Union (MU) and the charity Help Musicians, three out of 10 UK musicians have experienced poor mental wellbeing.
Naomi Pohl, the MU’s general secretary, said: “The industry has woken up to mental health issues affecting musicians over the past few years, to a certain extent. [But] there is a lot more that could be done to offer support [and] promote wellbeing.”
Asked if she agreed with Musgrove that music was an unsafe industry, Pohl said: “It can be but I don’t think it is for everyone. There are some employers that have robust mental health support for musicians.”
But she said freelance musicians – who make up 70% of the workforce – faced particular trouble accessing mental health support because they could not claim sick pay and often had no direct colleagues or managers to talk problems through with.
Sarah Woods, the chief executive of the charity Help Musicians, has said “diluted revenue streams, fewer opportunities to perform, a struggling grassroots circuit and less money available for fans to spend” are leaving musicians in a poor financial predicament.
That in turn was “a constant threat that could not only see musicians leave the industry, but one that also presents a real risk to mental health in the profession”, she said.
The charity set up Music Minds Matter, which provides 24/7 help to people in the music industry, in response to a growing need for wellbeing support.
The three big labels – Sony, Warner Music and Universal Music – have responded to increased awareness of musicians’ mental health struggles by putting in place more support. Sony appointed a director of artist and employee wellbeing in 2021.
But Musgrave and Lamis argue the industry still needs to do much more to reduce risk, including by implementing a “zero suicide framework” that is already in use in other sectors.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
