'Scarier Than Cancer'... Suicide Is the Leading Cause of Death Among People in Their 40s for Second Consecutive Year

For individuals in their teens to forties last year, the leading cause of death was suicide (intentional self-harm), maintaining the trend from the previous year. However, the number of suicides slightly decreased compared to the previous year.

According to the '2025 Statistics on Causes of Death' released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, the number of suicides last year was 14,144, a 4.9% decrease from the prior year.

By age group, suicide was the number one cause of death among those aged 10 to 40. In the forties, the proportion of deaths due to suicide (25.4%) was higher than that of cancer (24.7%) for the second consecutive year. For those aged 50 and older, cancer was the leading cause of death, while suicide ranked second.

On the 13th, when the cold spell of spring arrived, the urban sky viewed from Mapo Bridge in Seoul was clear blue. The fine dust concentration is expected to be from 'Good' to 'Moderate' nationwide due to favorable atmospheric dispersion. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

Breaking down the proportion of deaths due to suicide by age: it accounted for 51.2% in teenagers, 53.5% in those in their twenties, 42.3% in their thirties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 4.7% in their sixties. The suicide rate, which is the number of suicides per 100,000 people, was 27.8—a decrease of 1.4 persons (-4.7%) from the previous year. By gender, the suicide rate for men (39.7) was 2.5 times higher than that for women (16.0). Both male (-4.9%) and female (-4.1%) suicide rates decreased compared to the previous year.

In 2025, the average daily number of deaths by suicide was 38.8, meaning that approximately 1.6 individuals took their own lives every hour. This was around three times higher than the average daily number of alcohol-related deaths (13.3).

Korea continues to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The country's age-standardized suicide rate among OECD member countries was 24.9 per 100,000 people—over twice the OECD member average of 10.9.

Meanwhile, the total number of deaths last year stood at 362,968, an increase of 4,399 (1.2%) compared to the previous year. The crude mortality rate—meaning the number of deaths per 100,000 people—was 712.6, up 10.0 (1.4%) year-on-year. Notably, 54.7% of all deaths were among individuals aged 80 or older.

Cancer (malignant neoplasm) remained the leading cause of death overall, accounting for 24.9% of all deaths. The cancer mortality rate per 100,000 people was 177.1, a 1.6% increase from the previous year. By cancer type, the mortality rates were highest for lung cancer (38.9), followed by liver cancer (20.4), colorectal cancer (19.1), pancreatic cancer (17.0), and gastric cancer (13.7).

By gender, the cancer mortality rate for men (219.9) was approximately 1.6 times greater than that for women (134.7). Following cancer, heart disease (66.3) and pneumonia (60.8) ranked as the second and third leading causes of death, respectively. These three causes accounted for 42.7% of all deaths.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.