A new survey suggests that social discord in South Korea reached its highest point in six years in 2024. 

According to the survey on social integration for 2024, conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs between June and September and released Monday, the three-thousand adult respondents assessed the level of social discord at an average of three-point-04 on a scale from one to four.

The figure is the highest since the social discord evaluation was added to the social integration survey in 2018. 

The survey found that discord between conservatives and progressives was the most serious kind, followed by conflict among regions and discord between regular and irregular workers.

In the category of perceptions about social integration, respondents gave a score of four-point-32 out of a total of ten points. 

The figure stood at its highest level in 2021 at four-point-59 during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It then declined for two straight years before seeing a slight increase last year. 

The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs has been conducting the survey on social integration annually since 2014.

In the eleventh and latest survey, the institute focused on how immigrants are perceived in South Korean society. 

Nearly 61-and-a-half percent of those surveyed said they did not find it odd to have foreigners with different skin colors or cultural backgrounds living in their neighborhoods.

Around 54 percent of respondents said current immigration policies must be maintained, while roughly 21 percent said the nation should accept more immigrants and nearly 19 percent said the opposite.