on the suicides happening at the plant that makes iPads...

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Death by Foxconn - Cringely on technology:

What kind of sweat shop is Foxconn, anyway?

I don’t know and nether do you. What we do know is the annual suicide rate per 100,000 people in China is about 13.5, with slightly more women than men taking their own lives (the only major country where that is the case, by the way). That means the Foxconn factory, with 300,000 workers, ought to be experiencing almost 40 suicides per year, while the reported numbers are a lot less than that.

This story says more about the press than it does about Foxconn, because I’ve read about it for months and nobody else seems to have done the math, which isn’t hard to do. But doing the math makes the story weaker, so of course it isn’t mentioned.

I was asking this question just the other day - is it really that abnormal, when compared with the rest of the country, or is it only getting publicity because it has to do with Apple, and therefore needs to be a story even though it isn't?

BTW, the rate for Americans is 11.1.  China actually has more women then men commit suicide (14.8 vs 13.0), but in America its FAR more men (17.7 to 4.5).