Middle school students in South Korea reported higher rates of depression than high school students, who face greater pressure from college entrance exams. Middle schoolers also accounted for roughly 38% of all suicides among elementary, middle and high school students, raising concerns that the mental health crisis is spreading to younger age groups. Analysts say support for students' mental health should be strengthened starting at the middle school level.
According to "Student Mental Health and School Support: A Statistical Review," published in the 400th issue of the Education Policy Forum by the Education Policy Network at the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) on the 25th, 26.2% of middle school students reported experiencing depression last year, 1.1 percentage points higher than the 25.1% among high school students. In 2024, the rate among middle schoolers was 27.9%, also above the 27.5% recorded for high schoolers. In 2023, middle schoolers again came in higher at 26.3%, compared with 25.6% for high schoolers.
The depression rate measures the share of students who, over the past year, felt sad or hopeless enough to stop their daily activities for two straight weeks. KEDI said the finding that middle schoolers are more vulnerable than high schoolers, who bear a heavier exam burden, shows that mental health support needs to begin at an earlier stage.
Student suicide data point to the same problem. According to figures submitted by the Ministry of Education to Rep. Suh Beom-soo of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, 43 of the 112 elementary, middle and high school students who took their own lives between January and June this year were middle schoolers, or 38.4% of the total. Last year, 92 of 244 students who died by suicide were middle schoolers, accounting for 37.7%. A high share of the total alone, however, does not establish that middle schoolers face a greater suicide risk than high schoolers.
By gender, mental health indicators for girls were weaker than those for boys. Last year, 29.9% of female students reported experiencing depression, 8.2 percentage points above the 21.7% among male students. The stress rate, which measures the share of students who regularly feel high levels of stress, stood at 50.3% for girls, 17.4 percentage points higher than the 32.9% for boys. Compared with a year earlier, the rate for boys fell 2.3 percentage points while the rate for girls rose 0.4 percentage point, widening the gender gap.
More children and adolescents are also seeking hospital care for mental health problems. According to the National Health Insurance Service, the number of patients aged 0 to 19 who received psychiatric treatment rose 57.3% in four years, from about 270,000 in 2021 to about 430,000 last year. KEDI said the increase can be read both as a signal that more young people are struggling and as a sign that lower barriers to care are prompting more of them to seek help.