By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter

The number of Korean adolescents who have foreign mothers totaled 16,937 in 2008, soaring 43.2 percent from the previous year on the back of the increase in multicultural marriages.
The National Statistical Office (NSO) released the statistics Monday ahead of Children's Day, which falls on May 5, apparently showing that more Korean youngsters are ``becoming international.''

The number of students at elementary, middle or high schools from interracial marriages totaled 18,778 last year, up 39.7 percent from the previous year. Over 90 percent of them had foreign mothers, while less than 10 percent had foreign fathers.

Most of them, or 84 percent, were elementary school students, reflecting the short history of multicultural marriages here.

According to the statistical office, the number of adolescents aged between 9 and 24 currently totals 10 million, dropping 1 percent from the previous year, while the total population grew 0.3 percent to 48.7 million. It means they make up 21.3 percent of the total population, which compares with 36.9 percent recorded in 1978.

The NSO also showed that three out of four students here are receiving some form of private education, with 233,000 won on average being spent each month on this. Reflecting the competitive atmosphere in school, near half of teenagers said they were ``very heavily'' or ``heavily'' stressed out.

Among those aged between 15 and 24, one out of four were economically active. The unemployment rate in the age bracket stood at 9.3 percent in 2008, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous year. The average monthly salary for youngsters aged up to 19 was 1.2 million won, while those aged between 20 and 24 made 1.3 million won. Adolescents with college diplomas made 1.5 million won, 11.3 percent more than the average salary of people with junior college diplomas.

The statistics showed that 21 out of every 100,000 people in their 20s took their own lives in 2007, making suicide the biggest death factor in the age bracket.

Among middle school boys, the ratio of smokers stood at 5.7 percent, with the figure 2.2 percent for girls. In high schools, one out of five boys was smoking while the percentage of girls stood at 3.5 percent.

chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr