Korea’s suicide rate falls, but rises to record high among teenagers

   South Korea’s suicide rate fell last year for the first time in two years, but the rate among teenagers rose 7.5% to its highest level on record.

 According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics’ cause of death statistics for 2025, released Tuesday, 14,144 people died by suicide last year, 728 fewer than in 2024, a decline of 4.9%. The suicide rate, measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 people, fell 4.7% to 27.8.

 The overall suicide rate had risen for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024 before declining in 2025.

 Teenagers were the only age group to see an increase. The suicide rate among people in their teens rose from 8.0 per 100,000 in 2024 to 8.6 last year, marking the highest level since suicide statistics began being compiled in 1983.

 The rate has risen steadily over the past decade, from 4.2 per 100,000 in 2015 to 6.5 in 2020, 7.1 in 2021, 7.2 in 2022, 7.9 in 2023, 8.0 in 2024 and 8.6 in 2025.

 Park Hyun-jung, the head of the ministry’s population trends division, said an analysis of suicide statistics from 2024 showed that mental health and family problems were significant factors in teenage suicides that year. She said further analysis would be needed to determine what drove the increase last year.

 Suicide was the leading cause of death among people in their teens through 40s, while cancer was the leading cause among those aged 50 and older.

 Among people in their 40s, suicide overtook cancer as the leading cause of death for the first time since statistics began in 2024, and remained in first place last year. Park said the shift may partly reflect advances in cancer detection and treatment, which have made the disease more treatable when detected early.

 Using an age-standardized measure that adjusts for differences in the age structures of countries, South Korea’s suicide rate stood at 24.9 deaths per 100,000 people last year, compared with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 10.9. South Korea recorded the highest age-standardized suicide rate among OECD member countries.

 Cancer remained the leading cause of death overall, as it has since official cause-of-death statistics began. The cancer mortality rate was 177.1 deaths per 100,000 people.

 Among specific types of cancer, lung cancer had the highest mortality rate at 38.9 deaths per 100,000, followed by liver cancer at 20.4 and colorectal cancer at 19.1.

 Heart disease was the second-leading cause of death, with a mortality rate of 66.3 per 100,000, followed by pneumonia at 60.8 and cerebrovascular disease at 48.7.

 Sepsis moved up two places to rank eighth among the country’s leading causes of death. Hypertensive diseases and liver disease each fell one place, ranking ninth and 10th, respectively.