By Bae Ji-sook
Staff reporter
Not surprisingly, Korean children and teenagers have been surveyed as the least happy or content with their lives among their peers in OECD member states, a university research team said Tuesday.
They are under pressure, mostly to attain academic achievements. In addition, they tend to crave money over their families as they grow older, said Professor Youm Yoo-sik of Yonsei University after studying 5,437 subjects aged between 11 and 19 (elementary fourth graders to high school seniors.)
About 53.9 percent of the respondents were mostly content with their lives, down from 55.5 percent the previous year. However, compared to a corresponding research by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 2006, the latest available data, the portion is way lower than those in the list of the 20 surveyed OECD membership countries ― 94.2 percent of Dutch children expressed high levels of satisfaction to top the list. The average OECD figure marked 84.8 percent.
``It is a serious matter that few Korean teenagers feel happy. We assume the fierce competition to enter college as the major reason. Parents may help improve the situation by trying harder to understand their children, their children's friends and school life," Professor Youm said.
The students said they do not feel healthy enough and do not belong anywhere. About 16.7 percent said they were lonely, which was the second highest after Japan.
The respondents' largest concern was their academic career followed by appearance and conflicts with parents. Boys stressed about their height while weight mattered most to girls.
Adding up the scores for satisfaction of school and family life as well as other sectors, Korea's overall happiness index marked 65.1, the lowest among OECD peers.
The value of personal life also showed a dramatic change. Before entering high school, most of them chose family as the most important in pursuit of happiness. But as they become seniors, money eclipsed traditional values.