Children’s Mental Health Status and Its Policy Implications

Abstract

In this article, I address Korean children’s mental health status in terms of such indicators of relevance as stress, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide ideation, mobile phone overdependence, and problematic gaming behavior, drawing on data from the 2023 Comprehensive Survey on Children (CSC). Compared to 2018, while children’s mental health has improved overall, the suicide ideation rate has increased, with little improvement shown in the mental health levels of children from socioeconomically vulnerable households. In addition to having a system in place to monitor children’s mental health status, of which the CSC is a part, Korea takes on mental health issues among children through its child and mental health policies. Further efforts are needed to ensure that mental health measures for children function efficiently and in a more integrated manner, which would require enhancing cross-policy coordination.