Suicides Problem in South Korea
In highly-developed competitive societies, people always feel the pressure due to social expectations from them, and due to how difficult it’s becoming to reach their goals today. Starting from their childhood, people always feel pressure about the necessity to reach their families and their expectations — to have a good education, a good job, to be capable of financially supporting their families. All these become harder and harder when the supply on the market exceeds the demand, and everyone around competes for the same education and job positions. All this pressure often drives people to the edge and suicide. The best illustration of this is the suicide situation in South Korea, where they have around 25 suicides per 100k of the population — the highest rates among developed societies. Since it indeed is a complex problem with multiple factors, in this essay I am going to try to analyze the main reasons for the problem and suggest the decisions for them respectively one by one.
- Competitive Education System
Speaking of young people, the main reason for the suicides — is the competitive education system. Researches show that 46% of high school students in Korea face depression and suicide ideations or even suicide attempts. With an average student in South Korea spending roughly 16 hours per day on studying and other school-related activities, no wonder why these rates happen.
After a research, it becomes clear that in this particular case dealing with young people, the decision that may be suggested is the reduction of study hours. Children definitely should not over struggle and should have the right to childhood, to have more time to be naive and reckless, to enjoy life, and not be overloaded with work from early ears. As long as the only thing teenagers and university students see in their lives is studying — there will never be an improvement in this suicide situation.
2) Turbulence in Economy
Concerns about the economy and crises are also a big reason for suicides among adults as we see a big rise in the statistics during the Recession in 1998 compared to previous years. And also, as we can see the rates among men are times higher than those among women due to the traditional situation when the main financial responsibility in families is held by men.
The economic problems are extremely complicated and often unpredictable thing, so it’s nearly impossible to completely solve them as a factor of suicides. But we can try to at least reduce these rates by the improvement of governmental help in emergency financial situations and by establishing more quotas for unemployment benefit payments. Thus, the citizens would be less dependent on the economic turbulence and have at least some guarantees of minimal life essentials in case of emergency, so they could breathe out and focus on their daily life without the constant stress about the possible crises.
3) The Position of Women
Speaking of women, in particular, the situation is also very interesting. According to one research, the suicide rates among females are on a significant rise over the past few years, and, especially, since the pandemic and home isolation hit in 2020. Specialists relate this result to the fact that in many ways Korea is still very traditionalist in terms of gender relations. Women have much social pressure based on the expectations of their appearance and feminine behavior. Expectedly, the situation worsens when they should spend way more time at home being isolated and in many cases oppressed by their husbands and the household responsibilities, which sometimes may lead to depression and suicide.
The solution for this factor undoubtedly requires a core change in the Korean mentality and the view on feminity. Men should be educated to treat women as equals and understand the boundaries and the importance of healthy relationships without oppression. Meanwhile, women should be emphasized to speak about their problems and not be afraid to ask for help from the police and government. And the government itself needs to establish special mental health and law services to help people in toxic relationships who experience domestic violence.
4) Poverty Among Elderly
As well, South Korea has shockingly-high rates of suicides among the elderly. The researches show that the most common reasons for this are poverty and/or the wish to not be dependent on their working children who already have enough own problems. As South Korea showed great economic growth and a big change over the past several decades, many people who are now in their elderly age turned out to be not prepared to deal with the new conditions and not able to adapt to the new environment. Following the traditions, most of them are still extremely financially dependent on their working children.
And again, the solution requires changes in the economic system towards a more socialistic model. This situation may be improved by the establishment of the compulsory governmental pensions for the elderly counted from their taxes during the work. This would guarantee the people some stability and financial safety after retirement, solving the poverty problem and giving the people some basic life-essential minimum to live without struggling and prevent suicides.
5) Mental Illnesses Instead of Conclusion
And as a conclusion, another big reason is, expectedly (with all this economic and social pressure), mental illnesses— which are especially relevant to Korea due to mental problems being taboo in the society as something shameful. According to one study, up to 28% of elderly Koreans are depressed, compared with 10–15% in the U.S. But Koreans themselves don’t think they are depressed — this is a consequence of stigma: 78% of elderly Koreans think that depression simply means moral weakness (against 6% of elderly Americans thinking the same). Over 90% of those who committed suicide were diagnosed with different mental health issues, although only 15% of them received treatment. Instead, most people find the ‘decision’ of their illnesses in alcoholism, with an average Korean consuming 14 shots of hard liquors a week, which also leads to large numbers of suicides being committed while drunk.
This problem is a conclusion and a consequence of the other points as well as suicide rates themselves since it is strongly related to all the other factors and is a direct result of them. Thus, first of all, it requires the complex solutions in all the previous steps, developing the society as a more generally healthy, less competitive, and more people-oriented environment. But as a particular additional solution, it is also extremely important to educate people and eliminate the stigma of the mental issue in the society, emphasizing people to not be ashamed to contact the relevant mental health services and to be more concerned about their mental conditions and the quality of life and environment in general, preventing and avoiding various mental problems and, firstly, the depression, which is common among the most important reasons of the suicides situation in the country.
By implementing all these changes and advice, it is possible to change these horrible suicide rates for the better.
References:
- Katrin Park “South Korea Is No Country for Young People”, Foreign Policy, Accessed November 5, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/05/south-korea-suicide-rates-mental-illness-squid-game/
- James Watkins “South Korea’s Mental Health Problem — That Koreans Don’t Admit”, OZY, Accessed February 9, 2018. https://www.ozy.com/around-the-world/south-koreas-mental-health-problem-that-koreans-dont-admit/83629/
- Hendin, Herbert, Xiao, et al. “Suicide Prevention in Asia: Future Directions”, WHO. Accessed November 4, 2014. http://www.who.int/mental_health/resources/suicide_prevention_asia_chapter10.pdf
- Ritchie, Roser, Ortiz-Ospina “Suicide”, Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/suicide
- Eileen L. Yoon “Suicide in South Korea — statistics & facts”, Statista, Accessed February 25, 2022. https://www.statista.com/topics/8622/suicide-in-south-korea/
- David D. Lee and Pak Chan-Kyong “Young South Korean women are turning to suicide in ever greater numbers. Covid-19 is just the start of their problems”, This Week in Asia, Accessed December 13, 2020. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3113655/young-south-korean-women-are-turning-suicide-ever-greater-numbers?module=perpetual_scroll_1&pgtype=article&campaign=3113655
- “Statistics on Violence Against API Women”, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, https://www.api-gbv.org/about-gbv/statistics-violence-against-api-women/
- Ga Eun Kim, Min-Woo Jo and Yong-Wook Shin “Increased prevalence of depression in South Korea from 2002 to 2013”, Scientific Reports, 10, Article number: 16979 (2020), Accessed October 12, 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74119-4
- Steve Chao and Liz Gooch “The country with the world’s worst drink problem”, AlJazeera, Accesses February 7, 2016. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/2/7/the-country-with-the-worlds-worst-drink-problem
