Seoul: A record 81 percent of North Korean defectors living in South Korea expressed satisfaction with their lives in the South, highlighting an improvement in their overall economic situation, a survey revealed.

According to Yonhap News Agency, data from the Korea Hana Foundation, an agency affiliated with the unification ministry, indicated that 81.2 percent of the 2,500 respondents reported happiness with their lives in South Korea. This marks the highest figure since recordkeeping began in 2011.

The employment rate among North Korean defectors in South Korea reached 61.3 percent this year, showing an increase of 1.2 percentage points from the previous year. Concurrently, their jobless rate decreased by 0.9 percentage point on-year to 5.4 percent, while their economic participation rate rose by 0.7 percentage point compared to 64.8 percent the prior year.

A foundation official noted that the gap in major economic data between South Koreans and North Korean defectors is narrowing, signaling an improvement in the economic situation of the defectors. The differences in employment and jobless rates between South Korean citizens and North Korean defectors have decreased by 0.9 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively, from a year earlier.

The report was based on a survey of 2,500 North Korean defectors aged 15 and older who arrived in South Korea between January 1997 and December 2024.