Nearly 60% of Young People Say They're Unhappy

About a half of Korea's young people said they are unhappy, a poll suggests.

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The poll released early this week was conducted among 2,500 men and women nationwide aged between 15 and 34 by the Korea Labor Institute in September last year.

Only 22 percent said they are happy, while another 22 percent said they are neither happy nor unhappy.

The proportion was particularly high among women in the Seoul metropolitan region. More women (58 percent) than men (53 percent) are unhappy in the capital.

Unhappiness was generally more widespread in the hectic capital, but other urban and industrial centers also saw high proportions of unhappiness with 51 percent in Busan and Ulsan, 52 percent in Daegu and 48 percent in Gwangju and Jeju.

But hope springs eternal in the human breast, and they gave 4.99 out of 10 points for their happiness in the past, 5.11 points for their current happiness, and an optimistic 6.13 points to their expected greater happiness in three years' time.

Perhaps as a result, 49 percent considered themselves progressive, more than double the 24 percent who believed themselves to be conservative.

Sixty-one percent described themselves as realists, more than three times the 20 percent who identified as idealists.

Fatalism ruled. When asked whether they are seizing opportunities for greater happiness by the horns, 44.3 percent regarded themselves as passive and only 33.4 percent as active.