Former Doosan Group Chairman, Park Yong-Oh found dead at home, which brings one to ponder again why there are apparently so many suicides in Korea and it isn’t just prominent K-pop stars, like Jang Ja-Yeon 
or Korean politicians to perhaps a record high for 2009. It wasn’t so long ago that President Roh decided to take a long walk of a short cliff.
The USA today reported back in 2007 on the possible cause for the extremely high rate of suicides in Korea. The article said that stress from economic growth. A shocking state is that killing yourself is the number one cause of death in South Korea for people in their 20s and 30s.
Newspapers in Korea report every year I think a story about suicide right after the death of one of these poor stars takes their life.
According to an OECD report on Sunday, Korea’s suicide rate stands at 24.7 cases per 100,000 people, the highest in the group. Hungary followed with 22.6, then Japan with 20.3 and Belgium with 18.4. The U.S. recorded 10.2 suicides per 100,000, less than half Korea’s figure. Korea’s suicide rate also grew fastest during the last 25 years, an annual average of 5.01 percent since 1982. During the same period, other countries have reported growth in their suicide rates of around 2 percent on average, while Australia, Norway and Greece have reduced their rates.
Here’s one from the Digital Chosun Ilbo
According to an OECD report on Sunday, Korea’s suicide rate stands at 24.7 cases per 100,000 people, the highest in the group. Hungary followed with 22.6, then Japan with 20.3 and Belgium with 18.4. The U.S. recorded 10.2 suicides per 100,000, less than half Korea’s figure. Korea’s suicide rate also grew fastest during the last 25 years, an annual average of 5.01 percent since 1982. During the same period, other countries have reported growth in their suicide rates of around 2 percent on average, while Australia, Norway and Greece have reduced their rates.
Suicide doors are a big barrier to those looking to jump down off the subway platforms and on to the rails. They came in a few years ago and more and more stations seem to be getting them each year. Another popular way is to jump off a bridge and so barriers and watches had to be set up to stop that too. Here is a report from the Korea times
This year has already seen 16 commit suicides despite a growing number of screen doors at subway stations. According to Seoul Metro, about 200 have committed suicides at subway stations since 2003, which indicates that two persons ended their lives a month on average. Among them, More than 30 percent of the suicides took place the last two years.
Here are some shocking videos of a suicide attempt on the Seoul subway, one of a Korean student saving a child who got away from mom and ended up on the tracks and another with a poor old guy who walks into a moving subway train and falls down and gets stuck between the platform and subway car. So, there are a few other very good reasons for those sliding suicide doors.
One bigger issue of Koreans with mental illness may be a large part of why Korea has such a high rate of people taken their own lives. Well, not that there are mentally ill in Korea, but that fact that don’t receive treatment. Although this may be a larger issue for all Asians reports NewsWeek.
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