South Korea Has Highest Suicide Rate Among Other OECD Member Countries Since 2003
The suicide rate in South Korea continues to be the highest among other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries. Hungary ranks second with 22.0, followed by Japan with 19.1, and Belgium with 17.4.
Also, countries like Italy, Mexico, Greece and Turkey were listed to have low suicide rate with 6.3, 5.0, 4.2 and 2.1 respectively.
Recent data from the OECD Health Statistics 2015 reveals that 29.1 of 100,000 South Koreans committed suicide in 2012. This figure is more than twice the average of 11.9, and the nation's suicide rate every year has exceeded other member countries since 2003, which had an average of 28.1 out of 100,000 people. The highest record was in 2009 when the rate was 33.8.
In an article published Sunday on Korea Herald, suicide is also evident among many South Korean students. As of August 17, 17 have reportedly committed suicide due to stress - mostly because of unsatisfactory school grades - according to another data gathered by Saenuri Party Representative Kang Eun Hee.
Suicide is said to be the number one cause of death in South Korea, especially among individuals aged 10 to 39, as revealed by Statistics Korea's 2014 data.
Aside from this, an OECD survey lists the country at the bottom when it comes to quality of life. The organization's 'How's Life?' report has various criteria - health status, work-life balance and subjective assessment of well-being - wherein South Korea ranked 33, 31 and 29 respectively.
This might not be surprising since 2012 data has shown that Koreans only spend 6.9% of their GDP on health - a figure lower than OECD's average of 8.9%.
