By Lee Hyo-sik
Korean students were found to be the least happy among those in OECD countries, according to a recent survey.
After polling 6,410 elementary, middle and high school students across the country, the Korea Bang Jeong-hwan Foundation and the Social Development Institute at Yonsei University said Korea’s “subject” happiness index came to 65.98 points in 2011, the lowest among 23 OECD member countries for the third year in a row. Korea scored 65.1 points in 2010 and 64.3 in 2009.
Youths in Spain topped the list with 113.6 points, with the OECD average standing at 100.
The foundation said the subject happiness index is calculated by taking six aspects into account — subjective health, degree of satisfaction with school life, degree of satisfaction with quality of life, sense of belonging, adaptability to environment and degree of loneliness.
A researcher of the foundation said Korean students’ relative happiness is low because they are under greater pressure to study, having little time to spend time with their friends and family.
To raise the level of happiness, their life should be more integrated and parents need to be more involved, he said.
But Korean adolescents posted 127.8 points in surveys on education and 129.3 points in behavior and lifestyle, topping the OECD list. They also came in fourth in “material happiness” by earning 110.7 points, the foundation said.