Article Summary:
Title: As Families Change, Korea’s Elderly Are Turning to Suicide
By: Choe Sang-Hun
In Seoul, South Korea women who are 65 and older have been committing suicide. The numbers of these suicide rates have quadrupled in the recent years, making the country’s rate of such deaths among the highest in the developed world. This issue has been occurring because of the nation’s runaway economic success. Also, the law denies welfare to people who have children that are considered capable of supporting them. Unfortunately, the parents are embarrassed to ask for help from their children or government, but they are exempt if they have proof that their child cannot help them. The parents feel humiliated in asking the children because they feel like they fear of harming their family’s chances of getting ahead. Sadly, a 78-year-old widow committed suicide as a final act of public protest against a society she said had abandoned her. She committed suicide when she found out that officials stopped her welfare checks because her son-in-law found work. She left as suicidal note that read, “How can you do this to me?” read the suicide note that the police said they had found in a purse next to her body. “A law should serve the people, but it didn’t protect me.” Moreover, Korea started as a Confucian social construct like a collective society, parents help the children get a good education, and then when parents get elderly children will take care of them. Therefore, because the family will work as a whole no Social Security was needed and nursing homes were rare. Unfortunately, the younger generation in South Korea is migrating from the rural areas to the urban areas to work for their hypercompetitive environment that helped drive the nation’s economic miracle, and their parents were often left behind. In rural areas many elderly people now live out their final years poor, and feeling depressed feel of ghost town. Choe explained, “Such social shifts are not uncommon in the industrialized world.” But the elderly argued that the suffering is falling victims to changes they themselves helped unleash as they rebuilt the economy from the devastation of Korean War. “ The family was always and extended self, “said Park Ji-young, a professor of social welfare at Sangi University in Wonju. “Children were everything they had from their future-for health care, financial support and comfortable life in old age. Their children’s success was their success. As a result of this elderly issue the government is trying to make a higher retirement age, so people can save more money. That idea can cause an issue for youth unemployment. Choe explained, “It also began mandating that municipalities set up suicide prevention centers for all ages, and those offices have claimed some success.”
Critique-
The article ignores the fact that this suicide rate can affect the life expectancy and the economy. If the life expectancy is not high then that can be an issue with who will work, and putting more demands on the younger generation. This is an issue because this country was always a collective society culturally as it roots from Confucian social construct. The article also fails to ignore the social issue that elderly are supposed to be respected within the family and that children are supposed to care for them which is called filial piety. Also, it needs to emphasize that this is a collective view on what is good for the Korea is also good for the family as a whole. Moreover, this industrialization and urbanization yes it is a “social shift” as mentioned in the article, but the article ignores the fact that this “social shift” is also effecting the younger generation making them more competitive and individualistic leaving their elderlies behind. Most importantly, the government has affected the traditional family structure. Where it is traditionally the son taking care of the family, it is the idea of patrilineal, and the government has made this difficult for the families to continue. This is a social problem because traditional families’ views are going to have to shift when the families have been accustom doing this for years; and suicide rates are increasing among elderly.
I have abided by the UNCG academic integrity code on this assignment Maribel Rivera.
Maribel Rivera, February 24, 2013, 9:46PM
Title: As Families Change, Korea’s Elderly Are Turning to Suicide
By: Choe Sang-Hun
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