The Economist has reported that the suicide rate in South Korea recently began to reverse a yearslong decline on the back of increasing suicides among young women.

The British weekly said on Monday that after trending downward for a decade, the country’s suicide rate began rebounding from 2018.

The report said the increase reflects the higher rate of suicide among women. Although men continued to die by suicide at a higher rate than women, the raw total did not increase.

The weekly found that South Korea’s suicide rate for women under 40 was particularly high compared to 17 other countries that were willing to share data with the magazine.

The statistics showed that between 2018 and 2020, the rate in South Korea rose from an average of 13-point-six per 100-thousand women to 16, while the average of the 17 other nations rose from four-point-six to just four-point-seven during the same period.

The report said that one cause for the spike may be “the increasingly contradictory expectations forced on women” in South Korea, noting that they face workplace discrimination and homemaking expectations despite excelling in the nation’s highly competitive education system.