February 25, 2025
SEOUL – South Koreans are experiencing an overall decline in quality of life, with key indicators — including life satisfaction, suicide rates and family relationships — deteriorating further, a government report showed Monday.
Statistics Korea’s annual Quality of Life Indicators 2024 report revealed that South Koreans’ subjective life satisfaction score fell to 6.4 out of 10 in 2023, down 0.1 points from the previous year. This figure marks the first decline in four years since it hit 6.0 in 2019.
On a global scale, Korea ranks among the nations where residents are the least satisfied with life. With an average score of 6.06 from 2021 to 2023, the country placed 33rd among 38 OECD members, significantly below the average of 6.69, ahead of only Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Colombia and Turkey. Finland recorded the highest level of satisfaction with life at 7.74.
Life satisfaction increased with income. Individuals earning less than 1 million won ($700) per month reported an average score of 5.7 in 2023, while those earning over 5 million won scored 6.6, reflecting a 0.9 point difference.
By age, individuals in their 40s reported the highest satisfaction with life at 6.6, followed by those aged 19 to 39 at 6.5.
Korea’s suicide rate saw a sharp rise. According to the report, the country’s suicide mortality rate — the number of suicides per 100,000 people — climbed by 2.1 to 27.3 in 2023.
After peaking at 31.7 in 2011, the rate had declined to a relative low of 24.3 in 2017, but has now reached its highest level in nine years, matching the 27.3 recorded in 2014.
Men are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as women, with the male suicide rate rising to 38.3 per 100,000 in 2023, up from 35.3 the previous year, while the female suicide rate increased to 16.5 from 15.1. Suicide rates also rose with age, peaking at 59.5 per 100,000 for those aged 80 and older, followed by 39 for those in their 70s.
Interestingly, among teenagers, the trend reverses, with the suicide rate for teen girls aged 10 to 19 at 8.8 per 100,000, surpassing the 7.1 recorded for males in the same age group.
Korea’s suicide rate remains the highest among the 38 OECD countries, recorded at 24.3 per 100,000 in 2021. Lithuania followed at 18.5, while Slovenia recorded 15.7, with most OECD nations reporting rates below 15. Greece had the lowest suicide rate at 3.5.
Conversely, life expectancy, which had dipped due to increased COVID-19 deaths in 2022, rose to an average of 83.5 years in 2023, increasing by 0.8 years and positioning Korea as having the fifth highest life expectancy among OECD countries.
Other indicators of declining quality of life include family relationship satisfaction, which fell by 1 percentage point to 63.5 percent in 2023. The personal trust index, measuring interpersonal trust, decreased to 52.7 percent, lower even than 59.3 percent recorded in 2021 during the pandemic. The burden from education expenses weighed heavier in 2023, climbing 3.2 percentage points to 60.9 percent.
Leisure time for residents of Korea also dropped by 0.1 hours to 4.1 hours in 2023, although the average number of travel days per person per year increased to 8.95 days, showing a recovery since the low of 5.81 days in 2020, but still below the 10.01 days recorded in 2019.
In 2024, the employment rate reached 62.7 percent, a slight increase from 62.6 percent in the previous year, marking the highest level since 2000. The report attributes recent employment gains largely to the rising participation of women in the workforce, a trend that has accelerated since 2020. Last year, the male employment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points to 70.9 percent, while the rate for women rose by 0.6 points to 54.7 percent.
Korea’s gross national income per capita reached a new high in 2023, increasing by 2.1 percent on-year, or around 900,000 won, to 42.35 million won, according to the governreport.
Household net assets also increased slightly by around 3 million won on-year to 393.19 million won in 2024, although they have not recovered to the high of 423.34 million won reached in 2022.