Factors affecting the rise of suicide rate in South Korea

Abstract

In South Korea, there have been numerous superstars and celebrities who have decided to take their own lives. Noticeably, many of them seem not to have any serious trouble at all. Yet if we look carefully, the cause of such Korea’ high profile suicides links with pressures and stresses derived from sort of factor ‘behind the scene’. This leads to the purpose of the research; that is to investigate factors affecting the rise of suicide rate in South Korea. The scope of problem includes trend of labor shortage in the near future, and the rapid aging society that will soon increase the dependency rate on youngster. As most people always blamed external factors such as demographic changes, social factor, and especially economic crisis as the first cause of suicide, this research aim to prove whether external factor really affect the rising of suicide rate in South Korea. If it is so, how each factor contributes to accelerate the rise of suicide?. Both documentary research and quantitative research was conducted. A dozen of Korea’ high profile suicides reported through media during 2000-2009 was picked up as the case studies in order to understand more on the varying factors affecting suicide decision on each individual. Also, multiple linear regression was applied to test the relationship of suicide rate and each represented factor; demographic, economic, and social through computer program. The study found that social and demographic changes was the factors affecting the rise of suicide rate in South Korea through 4 predictors; that is child dependency rate, aged dependency rate, crude marriage rate, and crude divorce rate. Economic factor represented by GDP per capita and unemployment rate are excluded from the equation as it did not show enough explanatory power. However, external factors still play a major role in sparking the rise of suicide rate in South Korea because of its severe impact affecting social changes and mental illness contributing to higher suicide rate.