The tragic suicide of federal MP Greg Wilton earlier this year personified a sad reality that society is failing to grasp. Here was a man seemingly at the cusp of his career and yet dogged by a sense of failure on a personal front and unable to cope with the pressures he was under. His solution was a final solution. In making that choice he was, for his age group (early 40s), by no means alone.

As the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare recently attested, a reappraisal of Australian Bureau of Statistics suicide rates reveals a different emphasis from that usually reported by the media, as well as from that which usually attracts government funding.

The same generation of boys that effectively started the youth suicide crisis in the 1970s is committing suicide excessively as 40 to 44-year-olds today. Since the mid-1970s (when these boys were in their 20s) Australian men aged 20-39 have increased their rate of suicide by 93 per cent, and 18.5 per cent in the past two years alone.

The all-time-high rates for males aged 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39 were set in the latest figures available (1998), with the record high for 20 to 24-year-old males being set in 1997. Also in 1997, the rate of suicide for males aged 40-44 leapt 17 per cent its highest level since 1969. Concurrent with these figures, however, male suicide rates for those over 44 are stable or slightly declining. Likewise, the female suicide rate is very low and stable for all age groups.

A further surprising feature is the very low rate of teenage suicide in comparison with older age groups. It appears the bureau's normal practice of releasing suicide statistics in 10-year age groups such as 15-24 regularly masks the fact that the rates for 20 to 24-year- olds always dramatically outweigh the rates for 15 to 19-year-olds.

Projecting current male suicide rates into the future, as is commonly done with divorce statistics, one can predict that a 15-year-old boy today has a 1per cent chance of committing suicide before his 44th birthday. And this figure includes neither hidden suicides, nor attempted suicides, nor the projected escalation in rates. That 15 year-old boy, however, is very unlikely statistically to commit suicide while still a teenager, and even less likely to do so while still in school.

This fresh analysis by the Melbourne-based social researcher Trevor Chambers requires rethinking by government and welfare on how to reach those suffering depression. Plainly, today's 20 to 44-year-olds can't be reached through the school system, and only a relatively small proportion are in the tertiary system.

To constantly annex the words "youth" and "suicide", as our media have done, causes misunderstanding not only as to the cause of the depression as if it has to do with adolescence but as to a potential method of reaching those needing the most help.

Australia does not have a "youth suicide" problem. Rather it's "male generational suicide". If we are unable to help today's 20 to 44-year- old males, in five years we will have to help the 20 to 49-year-olds, and in 10 years it will be the 20 to 54-year-olds. We must get "youth suicide" out of our heads and focus on the real crisis. And we must realise that this male suicide generation will all too soon also become the downsized/retrenched generation, with potentially dire consequences.

While the suicide rates for Australian 20 to 44-year-old females are stable, as well as being less than 25per cent of the male rates, there is little doubt many are also suffering a malaise. Many other guides, such as figures on attempted suicide or crisis counselling or prescriptions for anti-depressants, point to a far higher prevalence of depression in the female population than in the male. It appears males and females respond to crises in different ways. Perhaps it's more archetypal for males to seek solutions (even final solutions), whereas females may seek solace.

The World Health Organisation has warned that depression will escalate from the fourth-greatest cause of death to the equal-biggest cause in the Western world by 2020. The WHO has made no suggestion as to when, or if, this trend will turn around. The reality may be that our failing Western culture for the coming generation of both males and females is in free-fall.

Mounting an attack against depression, defeatism and disillusionment, for this group, which may well become known as the DGeneration, will not be easy, because modern Western culture is not well equipped. Its hallmarks such as individualism, secularism, liberalism, intellectualism, materialism, consumerism and economic rationalism may be lauded as its strengths, but equally may prove to be its greatest liabilities when it comes to establishing sound mental health among the population.

Social analyst Richard Eckersley once claimed that those who commit suicide are acting like miners' canaries whose deaths give warning that something is wrong in the overall environment. As Eckersley once told The Age: "A guiding myth is almost entirely lacking. Our culture is just not doing what cultures are supposed to do, providing the myths and stories and beliefs and values that give people a sense of place, or purpose, or meaning, or belonging."

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