Four in 10 South Korean elementary school teachers are at risk of depression and nearly half are at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a survey, which has prompted calls to treat teachers' mental illness as an occupational disease tied to their work rather than a personal problem. Many teachers cannot take proper rest even as their mental health deteriorates because of gaps in classroom instruction and a shortage of substitute staff.
Among elementary school teachers who took part in the survey, 38.8% were found to be at risk of depression, according to a study on the distinctive working conditions and occupational diseases of elementary school teachers, released by the Elementary School Teachers' Union on the 4th at a recent forum on the distinctive nature of elementary teaching work and institutional reform. The share at risk of PTSD was 47.8%, more than eight times the 5.7% recorded among firefighters.
The share who said they had seriously considered suicide over the past year reached 12.4%. Specifically, 3.7% said they had made a concrete suicide plan and 1.0% said they had attempted it. The survey was conducted online as a self-reported questionnaire among 3,833 elementary school teachers in December last year, and researchers analyzed responses from the 2,179 teachers who answered every item.
Even when treatment for mental health problems was needed, leaving the classroom was not easy. In the survey, 78.8% said they had gone to work while ill. Asked why they could not rest despite being sick, 87.2% cited concerns about disrupting classes. In a separate survey conducted last year by the union, the absence of substitute staff accounted for 24.0% of the reasons teachers gave for not applying for work-related medical leave.
Applications by teachers for work-related medical leave over mental illness are also rising. The number of teachers applying for such leave because of mental illness rose 184.8% in three years, from 145 in 2021 to 413 in 2024. The number of elementary school teachers diagnosed with depression also increased 67.6% over the same period, from 5,637 to 9,446.
Experts said the worsening mental health of teachers should not be treated merely as a matter of individual stress or difficulty adjusting. Lee Jin-woo, a specialist in occupational and environmental medicine at Hanil General Hospital, said elementary school teachers perform intense, high-pressure work and extreme emotional labor while being constantly exposed to various forms of violence. Lee recommended improving systems for responding to violence and abusive complaints, while building a permanent pool of substitute teachers so that sick teachers can rest when they need to.
