South Koreans called their parents more often during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the frequency declined after social distancing measures were lifted, a report by a state-affiliated research agency showed Thursday.
The average number of calls Koreans made to parents they did not live with reached 103 a year in 2020, when the global pandemic began, and rose further to 112 in 2021 and 113 in 2022, according to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.
That was higher than the annual averages of 90 in 2018 and 97 in 2019.
But as COVID-19 infections began to subside and the country lifted social distancing measures in 2023, the number fell to 106 calls a year.
The findings were based on a nationwide survey of 7,654 households, specifically the 44.38 percent of respondents who said they lived apart from their parents.
Low-income households generally called their parents less often than middle-income households from 2018 to 2023. In 2023, low-income households made an average of 95 calls a year, compared with 106 calls among middle-income households.
Visits to parents showed less direct correlation with the COVID-19 pandemic. The average number of visits stood at 39 in 2018 and 43 in 2019, then at 40 a year in 2020 and 2021, and 42 in 2022 and 2023.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
