Suicide Epidemic Grips South Korea

Statistics demonstrate in no uncertain terms that a suicide epidemic is sweeping through South Korea. Over the last decade, suicide rates have more than doubled. It is the leading cause of death among men in their 20s and is the fourth-leading cause of death in the country overall.

One can understand the problem and its causes by considering the country's culture and recent history. Recoiling from a brutal colonial past, South Koreans in the early 1960s embraced a Puritan-like work ethic. The result of their efforts is the modern industrial nation we know today. The transformation has been so dramatic, in fact, that it has been described as nothing less than a miracle.

But then in 1997 catastrophe struck in the form of a financial crises. For the first time since the early 1960s, South Koreans began to experience substantial financial reversals. As well, they began to feel that hard work could no longer be a guarantor of upward social mobility.

This is the crux of the problem. For in South Korea, nothing is more highly revered than status and power. Leading South Korean psychologists and sociologists believe that this sense of economic stasis and hopelessness is fueling the rise in suicides.

Whereas South Korea has adopted the ethos of Western business practices, it has not done so with respect to Western philosophical ideals. Rather, it clings to its traditional preoccupation with status and class division. It seems to me that suicides will continue to rise unless South Korea embraces a value system whose central tenet is the principle that all men are created equal.