[2025 Unaccompanied Deaths Report②] Four-Year-Old Warning Becomes Reality... Lonely Deaths Become Routine

Compared to the 2021 Report on Unaccompanied Deaths
Unaccompanied Deaths More Than Doubled, Elderly Proportion Rises
Top Two Places of Death Remain Medical Institutions and Homes

When The Asia Business Daily revisited the issue of unaccompanied deaths after four years, the landscape of death had become even more silent and aged. While the 2021 report warned of an "increasing number of lonely deaths," this latest investigation confirms through statistics that the warning has become a reality. Over the past five years, the number of unaccompanied deaths has more than doubled, with a significant portion being elderly individuals who passed away in hospitals or at home. Deaths without family to call their names or relatives to hold funerals have become a routine social phenomenon across all regions of the country.

Unaccompanied Deaths More Than Doubled in the Same Period... Elderly Account for a Larger Share

Compared to 2021, the number of unaccompanied deaths has risen sharply over the past five years. Including cases where the year of death and age could not be determined, there were 10,751 unaccompanied deaths nationwide from 2016 to 2020. In contrast, from 2021 to May of this year, there were 23,643 such deaths, more than doubling in just five years. This figure also includes cases where the year of death and age are unknown.

The gap between unaccompanied deaths among those aged 65 and older and other age groups has become more pronounced. The overall number of deaths has increased, and the proportion of elderly among all unaccompanied deaths has also risen. In 2021, among 10,361 unaccompanied deaths with known ages, 4,799 were aged 65 or older, accounting for 46.3%. This year, among 23,097 deaths with known ages, the number of unaccompanied deaths aged 65 or older rose to 13,520, making up 58.5%.

Conversely, the proportion of those aged 65 and under has decreased. Four years ago, there were 2,411 unaccompanied deaths in their 50s, accounting for 23.3% of the total, but this year, although the number increased to 4,075, the proportion dropped to 17.6%. The absolute number of unaccompanied deaths in their 40s and under also increased, but their share of the total declined by 3.4 percentage points and 1.9 percentage points, respectively.

This upward trend in elderly unaccompanied deaths was observed across all metropolitan governments. In the 2021 report, only Busan (49.96%) and North Jeolla Province (51.98%) had elderly shares around 50%, but as of this year, every metropolitan area saw the proportion of unaccompanied deaths among the elderly exceed 50%. In Busan, 1,523 out of all unaccompanied deaths were elderly, accounting for 63.9%. North Jeolla Province (62.0%, 417 people), North Gyeongsang Province (60.2%, 655 people), and South Jeolla Province (60.0%, 367 people) all recorded proportions in the 60% range.

Top Two Places of Death Remain Medical Institutions and Homes

In 2021, the analysis of places of death for unaccompanied deaths was limited to the Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi metropolitan areas, but this year, the scope was expanded nationwide. At that time, 3,149 out of 5,224 unaccompanied deaths in the metropolitan area occurred in medical institutions, accounting for 60.3%. This year, nationwide, 14,164 out of 22,745 deaths (62.3%) occurred in medical institutions. This is attributed to the increase in elderly unaccompanied deaths.

In 2021, 1,352 unaccompanied deaths in the metropolitan area occurred at home, accounting for 25.9%. This year, over the past five years, 7,440 people (32.7%) died in their own homes.

The number of unaccompanied deaths occurring in public places such as streets, riversides, or parking lots, rather than hospitals or homes, also increased more than threefold nationwide. Four years ago, only 322 cases of unaccompanied deaths on the streets in the metropolitan area from 2016 to 2020 were counted. However, from 2021 to May of this year, 1,026 unaccompanied deaths occurred on the streets nationwide, accounting for 4.5% of all unaccompanied deaths in the past five years-a significant figure.

Meanwhile, the trend that most unaccompanied deaths are male has remained unchanged. Of the 22,259 unaccompanied deaths with known gender over the past five years, 17,152 (77.1%) were male, more than three times the number of females (5,107, 22.9%). In 2021, out of 10,767 total deaths, 8,287 (77%) were male and 2,276 (21.1%) were female.