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This week there was a surge of news reports on the state of South Korea economic culture trends. As popular culture stories tend to mirror what is happening, it seems singles are increasing, their incomes decreasing, couples who want to marry do not become official because of housing and other costs, and those who do marry don’t want children. The long summary follows:
Single householders are proliferating, but their income and assets are not even half the overall household average.According to Statistics Korea this week, one-person households increased by 336,000 last year to 7.5 million, which brought their proportion of total households from 33.4 percent in 2021 to 34.5 percent. The figure surpassed 30 percent for the first time in 2019. But life for singles is not without challenges. Their average annual income last year was W30.1 million, far lower than the average income of all households of W67.62 million, and 61.3 percent of them earned less than W30 million (US$1=W1,314).
Their assets also fell short of half the average for all households. As of March, the average assets of single householders were worth W209.49 million, compared to W527.27 million for all households, while their debts increased by 1.9 percent to W36.51 million. A majority or 54.6 percent live in small spaces of less than 40 sq.m. But more than half of them take a positive view of Korean society and their human relationships, polls suggest. A Statistics Korea official said, “As young people are increasingly reluctant to marry, the number of single households is expected to keep rising.”
According to the Seoul City Government and Seoul Institute’s study, 34.7 percent of young adults residing in Seoul stated that they are struggling with depression. Among them, 44.3 percent were unemployed after graduating, while 42 percent had been laid off. The poverty rate for older adults may also feel knock-on effects from youth poverty.“If unemployment and high numbers of NEET youth persist, it will become harder for the youth population to become independent from their parents and they will continue to receive financial support from them,” an official said. “In turn, it will become even more difficult for these parents to save money for retirement.”
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