SEOUL: She is a web designer by day and works at two convenience stores by night, including weekends. Since March, Kim Jaram has been clocking over 100 hours of work a week, more than double the hours in a 9-to-6 job.
“In (South) Korea these days, if you want to survive on a monthly salary, it has to be with a large corporation (or you must be in) specific jobs,” said the 32-year-old, who lives in Seongnam, a satellite city south-east of Seoul.
“For normal people, if you want to save up for the future, having two jobs is a necessity.”
The punishing schedule, however, is taking its toll on Kim, who holds an associate degree in food and nutrition but made a career switch after taking a web design course.
She has made errors in her work and forgotten to log on for Zoom meetings, raising her boss’s ire. She has also gained weight from the lack of exercise.
But she has a dream: to save enough money to start her own convenience store in a year’s time.
Kim’s story, and that of other youths CNA Insider recently met in South Korea, highlights the cost of an unforgiving and hyper-competitive system that begins at school and extends well into adulthood.
The factors behind the country’s youths getting stuck are deeply rooted in culture. But we found out how some individuals are trying to break free from narrow pathways and what more can be done to empower their generation.
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PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS
The weight of expectation for South Koreans builds from a young age, youths and experts say.
Parents “force” their expectations and unfulfilled dreams on their children, wanting them to get into the best schools and secure stable jobs, said Ko Gang-seob, youth policy researcher turned lawmaker.
WATCH: No sleep, 2 jobs: Can young South Koreans escape Hell Joseon rat race? (25:43)
This stems from changes after the Korean War, as South Korea’s economy developed and achieved rapid growth up until the 1990s. The idea of being successful and “quickly earning money” has since been ingrained, Ko said.
The son of a bus driver and a factory seamstress, Ko was previously at the Young Professionals Institute of Korea and is now a member of the Jungnang District Council.
His parents allowed him to pursue anything he wanted after he made it to university. “Today’s youth are in a slightly different family environment,” he observed.
Kim, for instance, wanted to pursue criminal psychology when she was in high school. When her grades were not good enough for early acceptance into university, her second choice was fashion design. But the prospect of an unstable career worried her parents.
She settled for food and nutrition and got a two-year associate degree. As a nutritionist, she earned enough to save up but felt it was not something she wanted to do for life.
IN EDUCATION, ADVANTAGE TO THE RICH
The fierce competition to get into elite schools is a well-known phenomenon in South Korea, and observers say it favours the wealthy.
All high school seniors take a standardised college entrance exam, with the stakes so high that aeroplanes are grounded or re-routed to prevent students from being distracted by the noise.
Many students spend years preparing for the biggest test of their lives, including shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars each month at cram schools called “hagwon”.
Last year, South Koreans spent 26 trillion won (S$26.3 billion) on private education, 10.8 per cent more than the previous year, according to Statistics Korea. Students each spent, on average, 410,000 won a month on private education last year, up 11.8 per cent from 2021, Yonhap news agency reported.
Students who cannot afford extra classes, by contrast, “may not even dare to dream about applying for a particular job or industry they’ve been dreaming of their entire life”, she said.
‘NOT A COUNTRY FOR SECOND CHANCES’
There are multiple reasons why many young people go all out to get into a prestigious school and burnish their CVs, which in turn has far-reaching impact on South Korea’s labour market and society.
One reason is to gain access to social networks that could help them get ahead in future, said Eun Suk, an assistant professor in the social welfare department at Duksung Women’s University.
Another reason is that South Korea is “not a country for second chances”, he said. “It’s really harsh that one’s life path is determined by a single college entrance exam.”
An elite school will boost chances of employment in a large corporation or the civil service.
This is one reason that South Korea’s youth employment rate is lower than the average in the OECD’s 38 member countries: nearly 9 percentage points lower in 2021, at 44.2 per cent.
Over 1.26 million young South Koreans (aged 15 to 29) are unemployed. More than half, numbering about 678,000, hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to government data as at this May.
For the 25 to 29 age group, unemployment stood at 6.1 per cent, more than double the overall unemployment rate of 2.7 per cent.
The share of youths who are non-regular workers (part-time, fixed-term and atypical employees) is also relatively high, at 42.1 per cent in 2021, according to Statistics Korea.
BECOMING A RECLUSE
The narrow pathways to success have an impact on youths’ mental health. This is something Yoo Seung-gyu, 30, has not only seen but experienced.
When he was 19, he withdrew from the world and holed up in his room for over two years. He emerged to do mandatory military service, then went back to being a recluse for about two more years.
Today, he runs a social enterprise called Not Scary to serve recluses, generally a group of people who have spent almost all their time at home for six months or more and have no social relationships. The commonest age group is people in their 20s and 30s, he said.
About 3.1 per cent of South Koreans aged 19 to 39 are recluses, and the government has announced more help for them.
In April, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it would provide a monthly allowance of up to 650,000 won to these individuals aged 9 to 24 in households earning below the median national income.
The allowance, along with eligibility for other subsidies, aims to help them “recover their daily lives and reintegrate into society”, the ministry said.
Not Scary currently runs a shared house with nine occupants including Yoo. The occupants’ families pay a monthly fee of 1.55 million won. Group activities at the house include exercise sessions and preparing for a play or comedy.
It is thus important to “intentionally show” diversity of life paths through campaigns, social and mass media, she said, and to “tell people that going to university or getting a white-collar job isn’t the only way to be successful”.
She welcomes the presence of YouTube influencers who are, say, high school graduates from ordinary backgrounds and/or have blue-collar jobs but who have millions of subscribers and are making good money.
One such YouTuber is Park Min-ji, 27, who has never aspired to work for a big corporation. She had attended a vocational school that was training her to be a zookeeper, but she dropped out later.
She did a six-month web development course, discovered she was good at it and gained confidence. Over a year ago, she quit her full-time job to make YouTube content, mostly personal finance issues. She also organises real-life meetings and talks on personal finance for young people.
Youths who graduate from non-SKY universities should “have a path to realising their dreams … even though they didn’t get the results they wanted in the college entrance exam”, said Eun.
Not enough South Korean youths aim to start their own businesses, and this is where the government could do more to help incubate small businesses and ensure access to credit, he suggested.
“Some parents walk past the cleaners and tell their children that if (they) don’t study hard, (they’re) going to be like that,” she said. “Nobody should be treated in that way.”
Youths can drive change by making their voices heard in the political arena, said Ko and Eun. They pointed out that the country’s legislative body, the National Assembly, is mostly made up of people above the age of 50.
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which provides data on parliaments round the world, the average age of National Assembly members is 54.9. Less than one in five are women.
With greater sociopolitical participation, “the policies that young people need are created”, Eun said.
MAYBE NOT A FLAT BUT A ‘VILLA’
In the meantime, the youths CNA Insider spoke to are tapping existing government resources and digging deep.
Seoul resident Park Jong-min, 30, wants to create a better future through web programming, after enduring a tough childhood and overcoming a gaming addiction.
His mother left when he was a year old, and he and his father moved when the latter had new partners. His father also had a drinking problem, and Park Jong-min left home at age 16, taking shelter in a temporary youth care centre, then his cousin’s house.
But a villa — which, in South Korea, refers to a small dwelling in a building usually no more than five storeys high — may be attainable. “As a web programmer, I believe I’ll not only focus on studying and making a living but also show (via YouTube) how I’m continuing to develop myself,” he said.
‘I’VE NO REGRETS’
Kim Myung-jun, meanwhile, might be the envy of those vying for SKY university places. But not content with going with the flow, he has worked to pay his living expenses, while his parents paid his school fees.
This has involved sacrifices. In his final year of university in 2020, he took leave from school because money was tight. Also, lessons were being held online owing to the pandemic, and he did not see the point of it.
He found himself having two jobs: one as an infrastructure manager in an information technology firm; the other with his own private security venture.
In the near term, however, he plans to complete his degree after a three-year break and looks forward to hitting the books again. “It’s my last chance to take the classes I want and learn things I’ve felt I’ve lacked while working,” he said.
He is grateful to his parents. “I am who I am today because my parents were strict and spared no (expense on) me,” he said. “I’m a very lucky person.”
As for Kim Jaram, who lives alone in an “officetel” — a studio apartment housed in a multi-purpose building — the dream is to have free time to exercise, meet friends and travel, perhaps even go on honeymoon round the world with a partner.
She earns 5 million to 6 million won a month from her multiple jobs and aims to increase the amount after she starts her own business. To save on food, she takes free unsold items that are near their expiry date from the convenience stores where she works.