Suicide leads causes of death among teens to 40s, cancer from 50s

The number of deaths in Korea last year reached the second-highest level on record, while suicide was the leading cause of death among people in their teens through their 40s, according to data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics on Tuesday. Although both the number of suicides and the suicide rate declined from the previous year, teenagers stood out as an exception, with their suicide rate climbing to an all-time high. Meanwhile, cancer emerged as the leading cause of death starting among people in their 50s, highlighting a sharp divide in mortality patterns across age groups. According to the data, suicide accounted for more than half of all deaths among Koreans in their teens and 20s in 2025, underscoring its disproportionate impact on younger generations. The share stood at 51.2 percent for teenagers and rose to 53.5 percent for those in their 20s. It then fell to 42.3 percent among people in their 30s and 25.4 percent among those in their 40s. The suicide death rate, meanwhile, increased progressively across these age groups. It stood at 8.6 per 100,000 among teenagers, r