Publicity Campaign Kicks Off to Help Prevent Elderly From Committing Suicide

By Bae Ji-sook, The Korea Times  

May 12, 2008 

South Korea

The number of elderly people who commit suicide is rising and the government has started a campaign to tackle the problem, an official said Monday.

According to the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, 12.8 persons per 100,000 between 60 and 64 years old committed suicide in 1990, but the figure jumped to 76 in 2005, in the latest available data.

The older the people were, the more likely they were to commit suicide. In 1990, 27.3 persons per 100,000 people over 80 killed themselves, while the figure soared to 127 in 2005.

The government has set aside 500 billion won for welfare programs for these people and is to air a TV advertisement from Tuesday calling for people to take a more active role in supporting senior citizens, Ryu Ji-hyung, the ministry spokesman, said.

The Korean Association for Suicide Prevention head Hong Gang-eui said the rapid increase is a rare case in the world. ``In just a decade, the number has tripled. We need to find the reason and come up with measures against it,'' he said. The suicide ratio is the highest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, Korean senior citizens are increasingly vulnerable to suicide attempts as they are ``sandwiched'' between traditional family structural ideas and youngsters' individualism. While the elderly had traditional ideas of fostering children with their wealth and letting the kids support them after retirement, youngsters are more likely to live by themselves and expect society to take care of them.

In 2004, only 28.3 percent of those over 60 said they had made savings in their early life while 42.7 percent said they would ask their eldest sons for financial help. Moreover, half of those who had no spouse said they would like to live with their children should their health deteriorate. However, their hopes did not translate to their children. The elderly living with their children dropped to 39 percent in 2006 from 53 percent in 1998.

Money shackled their lives too. Of 883 old people who committed suicide between 2004 and March 2005, half of them suffered from disease requiring a high cost for treatments, while 30 percent lived by themselves.

Bae In-geun, a researcher at the LG Economic Research Institute, and many other analysts said that after the Asian currency crisis, many people gave up on supporting their parents due to financial difficulties.

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