Seoul, Sep 28 More than 7,000 people died by suicide in South Korea in the first half of this year, according to government data on Sunday.
A total of 7,067 people took their lives between January and June, slightly down from the 7,844 in the same period last year but similar to the 7,142 in the first half of 2023, according to data from Statistics Korea.
Experts say suicide should not be viewed only as an individual issue but also as a broader social and structural problem requiring public health interventions.
In a recent article in the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs' (KIHASA) International Social Security Review, Choi Min-jae, a researcher at the Korea University Graduate School of Public Health, said the government should move beyond targeted interventions for high-risk groups to include "selective and universal" measures addressing risks across the general population.
He also urged the establishment of a comprehensive control tower to assess how fiscal, labour and other policies may affect suicide rates and to introduce complementary measures where notable risks are identified.
South Korea currently holds the highest suicide rate among the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which stood at 26.2 for every 100,000 people in 2024, far higher than the OECD average of 10.8.
Earlier this week, government data revealed that the number of babies born in South Korea jumped nearly 6 per cent from a year earlier in July, backed by a steep climb in marriages.
A total of 21,803 babies were born in July, up 5.9 per cent from 20,580 babies born a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.
It marked the 13th straight month of on-year growth but the fourth-lowest figure for July since the government began record-keeping in 1981.
A total of 147,804 babies were born between January and July. The figure represents a 7.2 per cent increase from the same period last year, the highest growth rate since 1981.
It marked the first time since 2015 that the number of newborn babies in the January-July period posted an on-year increase.
The country's total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, rose 0.04 from a year earlier to 0.8 in July.
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