This paper examines the problem of elder suicide in the context of societal aging and social change.Statistics in China show that more elderly people killed themselves in the years after 2000 than in the previous decade.Existing research shows that prolonged illness and family conflicts are the two leading causes of elder suicide in China as a whole.The present paper’s central argument is that the gap between elderly people’s expectation and the reality they face in their lives could ease or intensify the two leading causes of elder suicide in urban China especially,and therefore an analysis of relative deprivation is much needed.To this end,the lack of medical insurance and the factor of urban expansion will be discussed with reference to elder suicides in Chinese cities.