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Life satisfaction unchanged in 2024, suicide rate up

Published: 05 Mar. 2026, 19:00

A pedestrian walks down a street in Busan underneath a tree blossoming with white flowers on March 4. [YONHAP]

Koreans' average satisfaction with life in 2024 remained unchanged from a year earlier, while the suicide rate went up, a government report showed Thursday.

The level of life satisfaction came to 6.4 points on a 10-point scale in 2024, remaining unchanged from 2023, according to the annual report on Koreans' quality of life by the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

Income appeared to have affected life satisfaction, as the score was the lowest among households in the lowest income bracket with a monthly income of less than 1 million won ($680), at 5.8 points.

In contrast, life satisfaction levels in households that earned 3 million won or more per month ranged from 6.4 to 6.5 points, nearly on par with the average for the entire population, the ministry said.

In the report, the ministry cited a separate report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network to compare Koreans' level of life satisfaction with other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Korea ranked 33rd among the 38 OECD countries in terms of a three-year average of life satisfaction from 2022 to 2024 at 6.04 points.

The reading is also lower than the OECD average of 6.5, according to the ministry.

A person walks around the Jongno neighborhood in central Seoul on March 3, 2021. [NEWS1]

Meanwhile, the number of suicides per 100,000 people rose 1.8 from a year earlier to 29.1 in 2024, marking a second consecutive year of increase. The figure also marked the highest since 2011, when the country recorded 31.7 suicides per 100,000 people, the ministry said.

The report also showed that people's average level of negative emotion, which measures the level of depression and anxiety felt by Koreans on a 10-point scale, worsened in 2024, as the figure went up 0.7 points on year to 3.8.

Age seemed to affect the level of negative emotion. The level was the highest among those aged 60 and older, while the lowest was among people in their 20s, the survey showed.

Korea's gross national income stood at 43.8 million won per person in 2024, up by 3.5 percent from a year earlier. Wage inequality, however, grew, with the country's relative poverty rate rising 0.4 percentage points during the cited period, to 15.3 percent.

Additionally, the employment rate of university graduates fell 0.8 percentage points to 69.5 percent last year, marking the first on-year decline since 2020, when the figure fell by 2 percentage points to 65.1 percent.

If you or someone you know is feeling emotionally distressed or struggling with thoughts of suicide, LifeLine Korea can be contacted at 1588-9191 or the Crisis Counseling Center at 1577-0199. The Seoul Global Center offers English-language counseling, contact 02-2075-4180 (+1) to arrange a session. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

Yonhap