Online Program

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All Times EDT

Thursday, October 7
Thu, Oct 7, 1:15 PM - 2:30 PM
Virtual
Speed Session

Childbirth as a Risk Factor of Suicide Ideation in South Korean Women (309968)

*Kayden Yujeong, California State University, Fullerton 

Keywords: Suicide, Korean women, offspring, longitudinal

In Korea, suicide rates have been rising especially among women. One study reported the number of children is positively related to suicide ideation in Korean women. As in the modern society of the most developed countries, Korean women are educated that they have equal opportunities to pursue any profession regardless of their sex. However, they are still expected to cater to the traditional gender role, such as sacrificing their own career to take charge of housework. If they have childbirths, in many cases, they stay at home solely with their babies, disconnected from the previous social relationships, which would negatively impact their self-efficacy and social belongingness. This situation possibly causes them to experience greater suicide ideation due to higher feelings of burndensomeness and less belongingness. The current study aims to investigate the causality of the effect of childbirths on the suicide ideation of Korean women by conducting a cohort-longitudinal study with the samples obtained for 14 years. We selected 962 individuals who had childbirths and 12,177 individuals who had not childbirths and compared the incidence of suicide ideation in the two groups after stratifying by age. For women aged 20-39, the risk of having suicide ideation is 229% higher in the individuals who had childbirths. The results show that there is positive causality between having childbirths and suicide ideation in the younger women population.