2019 청소년 통계 "중고생 사망원인 1위는 자살...소년범죄자 수는 감소"
Suicide continues to be the number one cause of death among young people in Korea... although the number of suicide cases are on a downturn.
Also falling,... is the number of youth crime.
Our Yoon Jung-min has more on the latest statistics on Korean youth.
Among young South Koreans, suicide has been the number one cause of death for the past 11 years.
According to findings released Wednesday by Statistics Korea, suicide was the main cause of death in 2017... among those aged nine to 24.
For every 100-thousand people in that age group, suicide took the lives of 7-point-7 of them, on average.
Though it's still the number one cause of death among young people, the suicide rate peaked in 2009 and has been decreasing
Other main causes included traffic accidents and cancer.
As for youth crime, the number of teenage perpetrators went down in 2017 by some 4 percent to 72-point-7 thousand, marking the lowest level since 2006.
Property crime accounted for nearly 40 percent, followed by serious crimes like robbery, murder and sexual assault.
Despite the overall decrease in youth crime, violence and felonies rose as a proportion.
Also, smoking and drinking among the youth went up slightly, too.
In 2018, some 6-point-7 percent of respondents said they smoke, while nearly 17 percent said they drink alcohol.
Meanwhile, a growing number of young people apparently think Korean society is getting safer.
A separate survey on social security and gender equality... found that among those aged 13 to 24, just under 25 percent think it's getting safer, up 8-point-9 percentage points from the year before.
Yoon Jung-min, Arirang News.
