Roughly 3 out of 10 foreign nationals living in South Korea feel depressed or anxious, with the figure almost doubling for those staying on a student visa, a study indicated Sunday.
Researchers from Hanyang University and Wonkwang University conducted a study on 746 migrants in the country. The study was based on a 2020 survey on the migrants' health and medical care, which showed that 31.8 percent of respondents had felt "very" anxious or depressed in the previous year.
By demographic, higher rates of anxiety and depression were recorded among women (38.3 percent) than men (26.6 percent), as well as among those with student visas (60.5 percent), residential visas (51.6 percent) and refugee status (48.2 percent). Just 23.7 percent of migrants with working visas said they were anxious or depressed.
Researchers noted that many of the foreign national students had to work while studying, which led to stress. There are currently 253,434 foreign students in South Korea, according to a Ministry of Education survey shared earlier this year.
The study also showed that migrants with limited access to medical care were much more likely to experience anxiety and depression (59.5 percent), compared to those with full access.
A substantial proportion of residents in South Korea are also living with depression, according to National Health Insurance Service data revealed at this year's parliamentary audit. Some 4.9 million people were treated for depression from 2020 to 2024, with the annual figure rising from 832,483 in 2020 to 1.1 million in 2024.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
