The discussions and analyeses presented in this paper indicate the predominant role played by families in providing both financial and emotional support to the elderly in Asia. As represented by their high labor force participation rates by international standards, however, a substantial proportion of old Asians support themselves through employment, mostly in agriculture or other industries with low productivity. On the other hand, the availability of resources through the public support system in still severely limited in most Asian countries. There are a number of indications, however, that as a consequence of fertility and mortality declines, coupled with rapid industrialization and urbanization, family size and strucure have already been shifting in many Asian countries, so that the pattern of support systems, both personal and public, has been changing pronouncedly in recent years.
We examined the prevalence of self-reported suicide attempts and the relationship vetween suicide attempts and background characteristics, social integration, stress at school, psychological distress, and suicidal thoughts in a nationally representative sample of Korean adolescents. As part of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs` Adolescent Health Suvey data were collected from 5,209 eighth graders and 4,677 eleventh graders from 70 junior high and senior high schools in Korea.