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Suicide rate jumps amid downturn
By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
Korea's suicide rate and number of people committing suicide, which had fallen since 2013, rose by nearly 10 percent last year amid a prolonged business downturn, data showed Tuesday.
According to Statistics Korea, the suicide rate has risen by 9.5 percent, amid tougher economic circumstances.
The suicide rate is calculated as the number of deaths by suicide per 100,000 people.
The figure for 2018 stood at 26.6, which is 9.5 percent greater than the figure from a year earlier.
The number of people who committed suicide also grew by 9.7 percent to 13,670 last year.
The suicide rate and number of deaths from suicide peaked in 2011 at 28.5 per 100,000 and a total of 14,427, and the figures started falling in 2013, but saw a rise last year.
The suicide rate increased for all age groups with the exception of those aged 80 and above.
The rate increased by 22.1 percent for those in their teens, 13.1 percent for people in their 40s and 12.2 percent for people in their 30s.
The suicide rate for men was 2.6 times higher than the rate for women.
Highest suicide rate in OECD
According to the OECD's standardized mortality rate, Korea had 24.7 deaths from suicide per 100,000 people last year.
This is significantly higher than the OECD average of 11.5. Korea topped the list again, after Lithuania had the highest figure at 24.4 in 2017.
With the exception of Korea and Lithuania no other member state of the OECD has a figure that exceeds 20 per 100,000 people.
A Statistics Korea official said "We believe Korea was influenced by factors including the Werther effect."
The Werther effect refers to a spike of “copy-cat” suicides after widely publicized cases of suicide.
The suicide rate is seen to have grown during periods of economic crisis, including when Korea was hit by the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s, and the time of the global financial crisis in 2009.
“While there are a complexity of factors, economic circumstances affecting employment status and business conditions for the self-employed can be associated with the suicide rate,” Yonsei University professor Sung Tae-yoon said.
In 2018, a total 298,820 deaths were reported in Korea, up 4.7 percent from a year earlier, the highest level since 1983 when the agency began compiling such data.
Cancer remained the main cause of death with 79,153 people dying of the deadly disease, which accounted for 26.5 percent of all deaths. Heart disease ranked second with 10.7 percent, followed by pneumonia with 7.8 percent.