Are Koreans More Likely to Kill Themselves?
I came to wonder, are Koreans biologically more predisposed to suicide than other ethnicities? Why does Korea suffer from such a high suicide rate in all of its age groups when its culture does not seem to differ too much from other East Asian countries, like China and Japan? How much more robust could Korea’s cultural norm to disregard mental health be compared to that of other Asian countries? I wanted to learn whether Koreans residing in other countries than Korea show an equally high suicide rate. I chose to focus my attention specifically on Korean Americans since the U.S has the most number of Korean immigrants.
After some time of research, however, I was disappointed to discover that there are not many studies available on the issue of Korean Americans’ suicide rate or even general mental health. The question of Koreans’ biological predisposition to suicide seemed so important and applicable to me as it may prompt an innovative approach for Korea’s war on suicide as a nation.
One study I found focused on statistics of Asian Americans as a whole and their suicide-related outcomes based on national suicide rates in 2007. This study essentially found that the myth about Asian Americans having the highest suicide rates is as false as it could be: The suicide rate for Asian Americans (6.10 per 10,000) was found to be only about half that of the national rate (11.5 per 10,000). Despite this national data, an exceptional point to be noted is that Asian American college students seemed to have a higher rate of suicidal thoughts than students of other ethnicities. However, there is no national data about their rate of suicide deaths that could enable further research.
A summary of the mental and behavioral health of Asian Americans given by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health presents more recent national data on the subject from 2017. This study also found that the overall suicide rate for Asians Americans was half that of the non-Hispanic white population for both males and females, as the previous study. The percent of the population with “feelings of sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness, or that everything is an effort, all of the time” was also significantly lower in Asian Americans than non-Hispanic whites. The same pattern was seen for serious psychological distress, where non-Hispanic whites were twice more likely to suffer from serious psychological stress compared to Asian Americans. One contrasting trend, however, was within Asian American female youths: Asian American female high school students were 20 percent more likely to attempt suicide as compared to non-Hispanic white female students. Could this be related to one of my previous blog posts Being Female and Suicide Ideation, who knows? The greatest strength of this particular summary, either way, presented by the OMH lies in its data on individual Asian ethnicities.
The highlight of this finding: Korean Americans showed one of the lowest rates of having serious psychological distress in all of the Asian American population. The bottom line of this post: Koreans are most likely not biologically predisposed to suicide ideation. My guess: it is the Korean culture that compels Koreans to suicide.
