Why Do Elite Korean Men Commit Suicide?

By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

Pressure from work is something unavoidable and can bring about deadly consequences, if it's poorly managed. Experts say the intensity of such pressure has increased in recent years due to Korea's no-holds-barred corporate culture in the face of the economic downturn.

Four elite professionals from various fields - finance, manufacturing and academia - have killed themselves in the past four months after failing to overcome work-related pressures.

On Wednesday, a noted physics professor at Sogang University in Seoul was found dead. Police said the 58-year-old scientist, who was touted as one of the Koreans who could potentially win a Nobel Prize, jumped to his death from his apartment in Seoul.

He left his family and colleagues a simple suicide note that addressed how much pressure he had shouldered in his position.

"Physics is my life but it's placed an extreme weight of pressure on my shoulders," the scientist said in the note. "I've worked to complete a major paper, but things aren't going as well as I had expected."

Last week, a 47-year-old mid-level manager at Kookmin Bank, one of Korea's largest commercial backs, also jumped to his death from a bridge over the Han River.

Police are still not sure what actually drove the promising Internet engineer to kill himself. A variety of rumors behind his death are being widely circulated.

But the testimony of the deceased's family indicates he apparently committed suicide due to extreme pressure he faced in developing the bank's up-to-date Internet transaction system, and coping with outside scrutiny following the spat between the bank president and financial regulators.

Late last month, a 51-year-old executive of Samsung Electronics, who was lauded in 2006 as the company's best engineer, was found dead in an apparent suicide.

According to people close to the deceased, the executive had been exposed to extreme stress from work after he was promoted to a position responsible for nurturing a business unit that is now in the red but could be lucrative in the future.

Last October, a senior executive at Deutsche Securities' Seoul office also jumped to his death because of work-related pressure.

One of the family members of the deceased was quoted as saying, "He blamed himself several times for not doing his duty well."

Experts say the intensity of the work environment in society has hardened in recent years. They cited endless competition and the "winner-take-all" atmosphere, which are deeply rooted in society following the global recession, as major culprits for the change.

According to the National Health Insurance Corporation, the number of workers who complained about work-related stress stood at 101,000 in 2009, up from 66,000 in 2005.

A recent survey of 800 corporate workers showed nearly six percent of them have considered committing suicide at some point due to stress from their workplace.

But the worrisome fact is that only a handful of workers struggling from pressure at work vent stress in healthy fashion, for example through outdoor pursuits, experts say.

Only 14.8 percent of the respondents said they relax through outdoor activities.

Nearly 50 percent of male respondents chose drinking alcohol and smoking as the favorite way to unwind, the survey showed. The most sought-after means to relax for women was chatting with friends.

"People should change their mindset," Professor Oh Jin-tak at Hallim University in Wonju, Gangwon Province. "It's an undeniable trend that the competition in this society is getting fiercer and will become even tougher. So the first thing people should know is that winning in a contest by outperforming rivals does not necessarily mean the winner will be happy."

Dr. Kang Eun-ho at Korea University Hospital said depression is a symptom commonly witnessed among those with excessive stress from work.

"Depression is a clinical disease. It would be better for people (suffering from depression) to visit a hospital for treatment rather than trying to help themselves get over the problem," Kang said.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr

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