A recent study found that the percentage of isolated and reclusive youth has more than doubled compared to two years ago. According to the “2024 Youth Life Survey” released by the Office for Government Policy Coordination on the 11th, the percentage of young people who mostly stay at home was recorded at 5.2%. This is more than twice the figure from the 2022 survey, which stood at 2.4%.
When asked about the reasons for their isolated lifestyle, 32.8% cited difficulties in finding employment as the primary reason, followed by challenges in human relationships (11.1%), and interruption of studies (9.7%).
The prevalence of depression symptoms among young people increased from 6.1% in 2022 to 8.8% last year, and the rate of experiencing suicidal thoughts rose from 2.4% to 2.9% over the same period. Additionally, the willingness to marry and have children among unmarried youth has declined over the past two years. The percentage of single youth with plans to marry dropped from 75.0% in 2022 to 63.1% last year. Those intending to have children fell from 63.3% to 59.3% during this period.
The survey, conducted by the Office for Government Policy Coordination in collaboration with the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and Korea Research, is part of the national statistics approved under the Youth Basic Law and is carried out every two years. This is the second such survey since 2022, involving approximately 15,000 households across 17 regions with youth members aged 19 to 34.
The data revealed that 51.3% of households sampled had a young person as the head, with an average monthly living expense of 2.13 million KRW. The highest living cost was for groceries at 800,000 KRW (37.6%), followed by transportation costs (220,000 KRW), and entertainment and cultural expenses (180,000 KRW).
Among youth, 81.0% were unmarried, 19.0% were married, divorced, separated, or widowed, and 23.8% lived alone. The average annual income for young individuals was 26.25 million KRW, with average debts of 16.37 million KRW, and average assets of 50.12 million KRW. The employment rate was 67.7%, with a pre-tax monthly income of 2.66 million KRW. Among employed youth, 80.4% worked full-time (over 36 hours per week), while 19.6% held part-time jobs, and 5.5% had multiple jobs.
The survey also found that 76.2% of the salaried employees had no fixed term on their contracts, with an average job tenure of 35 months. The primary factors considered when changing or seeking jobs were salary (57.9%), job security (9.9%), working hours (7.6%), and long-term career planning (5.4%).
Overall, 61.1% of respondents considered themselves healthy, and 33.4% engaged in regular exercise at least three times a week. However, 6.3% of youth reported needing but not receiving professional mental health counseling due to financial concerns (38.6%).
Additionally, 19.9% of young people experienced difficulties in managing smartphone usage and 32.2% reported experiencing burnout in the past year, primarily due to career uncertainty (39.1%), work overload (18.4%), job dissatisfaction (15.6%), and work-life imbalance (11.6%).
The elements most desired by youth for a fulfilling life included jobs (95.9%), interpersonal relationships (94.7%), income and assets (93.0%), dating (78.3%), marriage (74.4%), contributing to society (71.8%), and childbirth and parenting (69.0%).