2023 Youth Statistics Released... Youth Population Accounts for 15.3% of Total Population
The leading cause of death among domestic adolescents has been 'extreme choices' for 11 consecutive years. The proportion of adolescents experiencing stress and depression has also increased, according to the survey.
In celebration of Youth Month in May, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, together with the Korea Youth Policy Institute, announced the '2023 Youth Statistics' on the 30th. This statistic was compiled by extracting, reclassifying, and processing youth-related content from various national approved statistics.
The number of adolescent deaths in 2021 was 1,933, an increase of 1.3% (24 people) compared to the previous year. Among them, males accounted for 60.9% (1,178 people) and females 39.1% (755 people), with a relatively higher proportion of males.
The most common cause of death was extreme choices. The number of deaths due to extreme choices per 100,000 adolescent population recorded 11.7 in 2021, an increase of 4 from 7.7 in 2017 over four years. Other causes of death included safety accidents (3.7) and cancer (2.7).
Additionally, 4 out of 10 middle and high school students (41.3%) reported feeling stress, which is a 2.5 percentage point increase from the previous year. By gender, female students (47.0%) reported higher stress levels than male students (36.0%), and by school level, high school students (43.0%) reported higher stress than middle school students (39.8%). Also, 3 out of 10 students (28.7%) experienced depression within the past year.
More than half of high school students (51.6%) slept less than 6 hours. The average sleep time was 8.6 hours for elementary students, 7.0 hours for middle school students, and 5.9 hours for high school students. Over 7 out of 10 students (73.4%) from elementary (grades 4?6), middle, and high school responded that they enjoy going to school, which is a 2.2 percentage point decrease from the previous year.
In 2023, adolescents aged 9 to 24 accounted for 15.3% (7,913,000 people) of the total population, less than half of the 36.8% share 40 years ago. This is also a 0.5 percentage point decrease from last year (15.8%). The adolescent population, which was 14,196,000 in 1983, is projected to decrease to 4,545,000, or 10.7% of the total population, by 2060.
While the total number of students continues to decline, the number of multicultural students has steadily increased, tripling compared to 2013. It was 55,780 in 2013 and 168,645 as of 2022. Among multicultural students, 66.2% (111,640) were elementary students, followed by 23.5% (39,714) middle school students, and 9.9% (16,744) high school students.
Meanwhile, as of 2022, 4 out of 10 elementary, middle, and high school students (40.4%) spent more than 3 hours a day studying outside regular school hours on weekdays. More than 1 in 10 (11.2%) reported studying for more than 5 hours.
The participation rate in private education was 78.3%, an increase of 2.8 percentage points from the previous year.
By school level, the rates were 85.2% for elementary students, 76.2% for middle school students, and 66.0% for high school students, all showing increases from the previous year.
The average weekly private education time was 7.2 hours, 0.5 hours more than in 2021.
In 2021, 0.8% of elementary, middle, and high school students dropped out of school. This is a 0.2 percentage point increase from the previous year, after a decrease in 2020 followed by an increase the next year.
The dropout rates by school level were 0.6% for elementary students, 0.5% for middle school students, and 1.5% for high school students.
Last year, 88.5% of adolescents aged 13 to 18 experienced remote classes, but 6 out of 10 (59.1%) evaluated remote classes as ineffective. A higher proportion of rural adolescents (61.2%) responded that remote classes were ineffective compared to urban adolescents (58.7%).
The rate of part-time job experience among middle and high school students has turned upward after six years.
As of 2022, 6.7% had worked part-time within the past year, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from 2021. The rates were 2.3% for middle school students and 11.2% for high school students.
Among specialized high school students, 27.0% had part-time job experience.
9 out of 10 adolescents (85.7%) believed that youth should also be interested in social and political issues and express their opinions.
The proportion of respondents who believed that males and females should have equal rights in all aspects decreased for two consecutive years since 2020 (97.1%), falling to 96.4% in 2022.
Female students (98.0%) showed stronger awareness of gender equality than male students (94.6%), and the positive rate of gender equality decreased as the school level increased.
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