Over 2 Years, Solitary Deaths Increased... Males Are 5 Times More Than Females

Ministry of Health and Welfare, Survey on Solitary Deaths in the Past Two Years (2022-2023)

Over the past two years, the number of solitary deaths has slightly increased. In 2022, 3,559 people died from solitary deaths, and in 2023, the number rose to 3,661. This is a slight increase compared to 3,378 in 2021. Solitary death refers to cases where individuals living in social isolation, cut off from family, relatives, and others around them, pass away due to suicide, illness, or other causes.

Employees of a specialized cleaning service are organizing the belongings of a deceased man who died alone in a one-room apartment in Seoul.
Photo by Heo Young-han

On the 17th, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the results of the "2024 Solitary Death Fatalities Survey," which investigated the status of solitary deaths in Korea over the recent two years (2022?2023). This survey was conducted by the Solitary Death Prevention Research Center over six months from April to September, extracting cases that meet the definition of solitary death based on criminal justice information from the National Police Agency and analyzing their social security benefit records.

The Ministry explained that the increase in solitary death fatalities over the past two years was partly influenced by the application of the current legal definition, which defines the scope of solitary death more broadly than previous surveys conducted before 2022, in addition to the increase in single-person households.

The number of solitary death fatalities per 100 total deaths was 1.04 in 2023, down from 1.06 in 2021. The Ministry stated that this reflects the cumulative effects of government and local government efforts to prevent solitary deaths, including the enforcement of the Solitary Death Prevention and Management Act in 2021, the enactment of solitary death prevention ordinances, the launch of pilot projects in 39 cities and counties in 2022, and the establishment of a five-year basic plan for solitary death prevention in 2023.

The average annual growth rate of solitary death fatalities over the past five years (2019?2023) was 5.6%, which is 3.2 percentage points lower than the average annual growth rate of 8.8% during the initial survey period (2017?2021). Specifically, in 2023, the regions with the highest number of solitary death fatalities (based on metropolitan local governments) were Gyeonggi (922), Seoul (559), and Busan (287), generally corresponding to areas with large populations.

By gender, solitary deaths among men were more frequent than among women, indicating that men are relatively more vulnerable to solitary death. Excluding 29 cases with unknown gender in 2023, out of 3,632 solitary death fatalities, 84.1% (3,053) were men and 15.9% (579) were women, with men outnumbering women by more than five times. By age group, those in their 60s (1,146) were the most affected, followed by those in their 50s (1,097), 40s (502), and 70s (470). Men in their 50s and 60s were particularly vulnerable to the risk of solitary death (53.9%).

The places where solitary deaths occurred most frequently were houses (48.1%), apartments (21.8%), and one-room/officetels (20.7%), with nearly half of solitary deaths occurring in houses. The proportion of suicide deaths among solitary death fatalities was 14.1%, somewhat lower than the 16.5%?19.5% range observed over the past five years (2017?2021). By age group, the proportion of suicide deaths was high among those in their 20s (59.5%) and 30s (43.4%), and relatively low among those in their 50s (14.1%) and 60s (8.3%).

Bae Hyung-woo, Welfare Administration Officer at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, “With the nationwide launch of solitary death prevention pilot projects* in all local governments starting this July, the government and local authorities are actively promoting solitary death prevention initiatives, and we expect to see gradual results starting this year.”