'Lonely deaths' are growing among single ajeossi

Social Affairs

Published: 21 Jun. 2022, 18:52 Updated: 21 Jun. 2022, 19:28

'Lonely deaths' are growing among single ajeossi

This picture shows a rice cooker used by a man in his 70s whose body was found two weeks after his death in Gangdong District, eastern Seoul, on March 20. Police found piles of garbage and a lump of dried rice at the bottom of the rice cooker. [YONHAP]

A mother in her 80s and son in his 50s facing financial troubles were found dead in their home in April in Changsin-dong, Jongno District in central Seoul.

Their corpses were not discovered for more than a month.

They had few interactions with neighbors. An alert water meter reader suspected something was wrong and found the dead mother and son.

According to the police investigation, the mother had mobility problems, and the son couldn't work due to chronic disease.

Lonely deaths — ‘godoksa’ in Korean — are only getting more common with the aging of society, more senior citizens living alone and an inadequate social safety net.

The Seoul Think Tank Alliance (SeTTA) held a policy seminar at Seoul City Hall on Monday afternoon to discuss lonely deaths cases and ways to enhance monitoring of cases through technology.

According to a report by Choi Soo-beom, a researcher at the Seoul Institute of Technology, the number of cases officially classified as lonely deaths in Seoul increased from 51 in 2020 to 76 in 2021.

Among the 127 deaths in those two years, 76.4 percent were men living alone, mostly in their 50s and 60s, according to data released by Choi.

Men in their 50s and 60s are at the highest risk of dying alone, according to more research released at the seminar.

Song In-joo, a senior researcher at Seoul Welfare Foundation, aggregated a total of 978 deaths of people at higher risk of dying alone in Seoul. Of them, 65.8 percent (644) were men, while 34.2 percent (334) were women.

By age, people in their 60s accounted for 29.1 percent (265), followed by people in their 50s with 19.3 percent and in their 70s with 19 percent.

Some 95.4 percent, or 933 people, were unemployed.

“Middle-aged men who died alone have been forced into evictions, suffered poor working conditions and experienced abrupt retirement, leading to a sudden [change] in their daily lives and becoming a risk group for lonely deaths,” Song said.

“With current support measures, it is difficult to prevent lonely deaths and to select risk groups,” warned Choi.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said it will expand distribution of so-called smart plug devices — a system that sends an alert to a designated local welfare officer if no use of electricity or no change in illuminance is detected — to 4,709 households within this year from the current 2,709.

Other Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as AI speakers, will also be utilized to detect abnormalities in single-person households, the city government added.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]