It has been revealed that self-employed women are most vulnerable to the possible threat of suicide.

According to the Korea Women’s Development Institute report on the issue, released on Feb. 7, 24.6 percent of self-employed women experienced thoughts of suicide over the past year, while, only 7.8 percent of self-employed males experienced similar thoughts during the same period.

Kim Young-taek, a researcher at the institute, said, “The results can be interpreted to mean that the stress incurred by self-employed women to take care of their families was quite strong and had an impact on the frequency of their thoughts of suicide.”

Meanwhile, in regards to irregular workers, there was not a significant difference in those experiencing suicidal thoughts between female irregular workers (24 percent) and male irregular workers (16.8 percent). There was only 4.4 percent point difference between the experience of considering suicide between regular women (14.7 percent) and men (10.3 percent).

The report also indicates that the suicide rate for South Korean women (15.6 persons out of 100 thousand in 2005) was three times higher than that of women in OECD nations, whose average suicide rate was 5.6 persons per 100 thousand in 2005. The report also demanded measures to be taken to strengthen the social welfare system for women in order to reduce the suicide rate for women in South Korea.

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