In Korea, 1 in 4 adults reported feeling stressed in daily life. Stress awareness was highest among people in their 40s.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's National Health Statistics on the 15th, as of 2024, the stress awareness rate among adults 19 and older was tallied at 25.9%. The stress awareness rate refers to the share of people who said they feel "very much" or "much" stress in everyday life.
By sex, women's stress awareness rate was 28.6%, higher than men (23.3%).
By age, those 40–49 were highest at 35.1%, followed by 30–39 (34.7%) and 19–29 (30.3%). Compared with the 2014 survey 10 years ago, people in their 30s (34.0%) had the highest stress awareness, followed by those in their 20s (28.9%). At that time, those in their 40s were at 26.9%, lower than those in their 20s. Considering this, stress levels among the middle-aged appear to have risen over the past decade.
Looking at sex and age together, the differences were starker. Among men, those in their 40s had the highest stress awareness at 36.3%. In contrast, among women, those in their 30s were highest at 41.5%.
The main causes of stress were found to be work life and economic issues. Across all respondents, work life was highest at 25.7%, followed by economic issues at 25.0%.
In particular, among men in their 40s, 46.6% cited work life as the biggest source of stress. This was much higher than economic issues (36.0%) or parent–child issues (4.2%).
Among women, family issues stood out more as stress factors. Women in their 30s cited work life (28.2%) as the biggest source of stress, but among those in their 40s, parent–child issues (27.6%) ranked higher than work life (23.2%) and economic issues (20.1%).
Among women, from their 30s through 70 and older, the share citing parent–child issues as the biggest source of stress was in the double digits, at 13.9–27.6%. In contrast, among men across all age groups, the share citing parent–child issues as the biggest stress factor stayed below 10%, at 3.3–9.2%.