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I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this does not surprise me in the least. The life in Korea is way too competitive and stressful. The hells

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this does not surprise me in the least. The life in Korea is way too competitive and stressful. The hellscape begins in pre-school and primary school where parents make kids go to private school AFTER school, often till late evenings. This progressively gets worse and worse until university. In my father's generation, people could relax after getting into university. They could party around, barely pass and still get decent jobs. Nowadays, that's definitely not the case. Getting a good job is insanely hard. You need to take care of your GPA. English certs like TOFLE/TOEIC are pretty much mandatory and you'd probably want other cert/ extra curricular experience. Okay. So you've went through all that and you've got yourself a good job. Now that's all done, can you finally start to relax and enjoy life? Haha, no. 52-hour weekly working limit has only recently been introduced, and the current president wants to get rid of that. Even if you work your ass off, it is _very_ unlikely that you can ever afford an apartment in Seoul. In the end, you have tired and jaded people without a fun childhood, who can't even buy their own house. I certainly would not choose to have children in these circumstances. I've "escaped" and live a decent life outside of Korea now. But I have many friends in Korea who have "given up" (in various ways) in light of all this . There are some friends who are married and have kids, but they all have rich parents or studied/hustled really hard. In spite of all this, I miss Korea so much. But I don't think I'll be going back. This is only one reason in declining fertility rate. There are many more (some mentioned in other comments) but this comment is already getting too ranty. --- EDIT: This comment got much more attention than I thought it would and I'd like to add some positive stuff too. There are certainly people who enjoy life in Korea by refusing to participate in the rat race and by prioitising building meaningful communities in their lives. Some things are getting better, albeit slowly, with each generation.

meitham 4y ago
> by refusing to participate in the rat race That does indeed sounds like a rat race! I have just came across this art which visually resembles what you described https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk&t=7s
missedthecue 4y ago
Who is renting all the apartments in Seoul if every smart person with a perfect GPA and 52 hour a week job can't afford it?
- thomasahle 4y ago
  I think OP is talking about _buying_ an apartment. The property may simply be owned by who bought it a while ago and are now sucking up the majority of wages of the younger generation.
- Joakal 4y ago
  That's assuming it's being rented out. It could be investor or developer sitting and waiting to sell or get a high rent tenant.
- NhanH 4y ago
  Afford in this context means buy. You can rent it but can’t buy it.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  As other people have mentioned, its about not being able to afford to buy a house to raise kids in. I do want to also mention though, a unique Korean system called "Jeonse", which is a large deposit that is 50-80% of the property value. After putting in the deposit, you can live there on yearly basis without paying rent. This system has been and is being used as property ladder for young families (as they don't have to "lose" money on rent) but as "Jeonse" is pegged to property value, they've been rapidly rising as well AND frauds around Jeonse has been on rise, in which case you can lose the whole deposit or be tied up in court battle for years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse
  - pnut 4y ago
    Keeping up with the Jeonses, that's how they get you.
    - 4y ago
agilob 4y ago
We're talking about 4 days work week for adults, but no one is talking about 40 hours work week for kids. 7 hours of school, 3 hours of homework, then karate, piano, swimming and football on weekends.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I've complained about that my whole life. Going from high school to college was wonderful because I had so much time time my first semester in college. (I ended up blowing that by overloading myself in subsequent semesters, but that's another story.) I always hated the idea of homework in school (outside of college/university) because I have never understood being at "home" but still required to do "work" for a place I just spent 7-8 hours at and most days 2-3 more hours for sports or band.
  - andai 4y ago
    I just never did homework, half-assed projects and did the bare minimum for tests. I had an unusually liberal school though. I probably would have dropped out if it wasn't illegal here.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  If those karate, piano, swimming and football are intense enough to be counted as "work" rather than leisure, then something is wrong. Are hobbies not a thing anymore?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    It depends on the intensity and the question of whether or not they are voluntary or mandatory.
  - searchableguy 4y ago
    Many kids are forced to do these activities to pad their application for colleges and sometimes it is for show and prestige.
    - 4y ago
Silverback_VII 4y ago
> I certainly would not choose to have children in these circumstances. Reminds me of the opening scene of Idiocracy: https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA
yieldcrv 4y ago
Is nobody really doing anything irresponsible anymore, en masse? where is the party, hookup, pregnancy and carry-to-term scene? is that not happening, or is the party, hookup scene all just that risk-free right now - even when pregnancy occurs because the latter suggests that people really just don't want kids, and possibly never really did its hard for me to think that all of society uniformly is successfully planning for children now, instead of many children being a bunch of accidents that the parents just go along with
- pjc50 4y ago
  "Failure to plan is planning to fail": given the potentially life ruining costs of pregnancy and raising a child, there's a lot of incentive to not make that mistake. > where is the party, hookup, pregnancy and carry-to-term scene? is that not happening Did that ever really happen in Korea? Even in the West having a "hookup scene" in the first place was a product of having effective contraception available, and a whole set of controversial cultural changes.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  This kind of planning implicitly happens when women are expected to have a career instead of finding their identity in successful motherhood. I don't know much anything at all about Korean women's professional labor, but I'd be very surprised if it did not play a role. Country fertility rates correlate extremely well with female full time non domestic labor participation.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Great, I’ll keep that in mind
sendfoods 4y ago
What has changed since your grandparents generation? Where did this (need for?) competitiveness come from?
- sumedh 4y ago
  Probably population growth, less resources more people.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Probably they used to be able to keep the poor, poor via something brutally effective and simple, like only a tiny minority even getting the chance to go to decent schools or universities. Now they need a lot of wasted effort to convince people that the people at the top are working really hard and deserve it to maintain the same elite dynamic. evidence: 7% got to tertiary education in 1975, and recently peaked at above 100% (not sure how that works to be honest, but the trend is clear) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=KR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=K... More evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality_in_South_K...
- floxy 4y ago
  Might a contributing factor be the older generation saw in their lifetime the change from extreme poverty to relative wealth brought about by the industriousness of the population? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River#/media/File:GDP_history_Since_1950_~_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River#/medi...
adrianN 4y ago
Well if competitiveness is the reason for low birth rates, this should fix itself once the older generations age out of their posts and the companies need to look for replacements among a much smaller workforce.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  Ah but the younger generations will need to support the older non longer working people who also happens to have more votes. Korean national pension is going to run out in 10 years or so, and there is already talk of raising the mandatory contribution from 9% to 18%.
noneeeed 4y ago
I have friends who spent a couple of years in Korea and they get quite sad when they talk about the kids they saw. They just seemed to have no life outside of an endless stream of classes and tutors. I'm trying to strike a balance with my kids. We encourage them to do things like learn music, take up sports etc, but not let that just consume all their free time. I want them to have time to just play freely, read comics, or just be a bit bored sometimes.
winReInstall 4y ago
This whole experience sounds very labour camp like. Minus the electric fence. The way out is no longer that easy. Of course the decorations are nicer and there are some who are kept around to work as "worser off" examples. But all in all, i guess most would cheer for the fall of this.
shaneos 4y ago
This is very accurate. I’m Irish, and when my Korean wife and I were leaving the US with our two young kids, Korea wasn’t even considered as a place to raise them. She had such a needlessly tough time as a kid, and her siblings are having to put their young kids through exactly the same exhausting upbringing. It’s not worth it. We’re luckily to have the choice of moving home to Europe and raising our kids in a way that they get to play a lot (I’m writing this while on a bench in a playground with them bouncing around in the sunshine) and also have school, art and sports. Korea is actively discouraging Koreans from raising their kids there, especially if they have any other option
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rukuu001 4y ago
Spent a year there 20 years ago. Even then I was horrified by the lifestyle.
TwoFerMaggie 4y ago
> you have tired and jaded people without a fun childhood Man this hits really hard because I spent my first 20 years growing up in China... Good thing is that now I'm in a much less authoritarian place with a job that has decent work-life balance. Have been trying to cultivate some hobbies in the past few years, feels like I've been trying to reclaim the childhood I never had.
- homeland221 4y ago
  Good for you. Hope if your children will have a better childhood!
- loldk 4y ago
finikytou 4y ago
the difference also is that your father generation (if he is 50 or more) did not really have a lot of good job. most of the jobs were blue collar. now it changed a lot as most of the jobs are really for the highly educated and its very competitive
memcg 4y ago
Could you please describe the impact on retirement and caring for aging parents. Are children expected to take care of their parents?
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  Well that's a bit complicated. Traditionally, yes. Korea has been a Confucian society, which meant that the eldest son gets the parent's house, lives with them and takes care of them. Incidentally, being a wife of the eldest son is also very hard, because you are supposed to take care of your in-laws (boy do I have some horror stories). With modernisation, this has changed. 1. Most women no longer wants to be servants for the in-laws (rightfully so) and wants to live separately 2. With less children, you won't necessarily have a son. So now, parents live separately, until they are unable to do so anymore. When this happens, the children might take them into their house and care for them or admit them into hospice or retirement home. You might ask, what happens if your children don't take care of you and you don't have money? Well you are kinda f-ed, as seen with the high elderly poverty rate. > [Korea has] the highest elderly poverty rate among OECD countries https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871725/#:~:text=The%20poverty%20rate%20of%20senior,Source%3A%20OECD%20%5B6%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871725/#:~:tex.... Oh, Korean national pension is also set to run out within 10 years or so, which will make the issue worse and/or make the future generation pay disproportionate amount of tax :)))
loldk 4y ago

meitham 4y ago

> by refusing to participate in the rat race That does indeed sounds like a rat race! I have just came across this art which visually resembles what you described https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk&t=7s

missedthecue 4y ago

Who is renting all the apartments in Seoul if every smart person with a perfect GPA and 52 hour a week job can't afford it?

thomasahle 4y ago
I think OP is talking about _buying_ an apartment. The property may simply be owned by who bought it a while ago and are now sucking up the majority of wages of the younger generation.
Joakal 4y ago
That's assuming it's being rented out. It could be investor or developer sitting and waiting to sell or get a high rent tenant.
NhanH 4y ago
Afford in this context means buy. You can rent it but can’t buy it.
creakingstairs 4y ago
As other people have mentioned, its about not being able to afford to buy a house to raise kids in. I do want to also mention though, a unique Korean system called "Jeonse", which is a large deposit that is 50-80% of the property value. After putting in the deposit, you can live there on yearly basis without paying rent. This system has been and is being used as property ladder for young families (as they don't have to "lose" money on rent) but as "Jeonse" is pegged to property value, they've been rapidly rising as well AND frauds around Jeonse has been on rise, in which case you can lose the whole deposit or be tied up in court battle for years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse
- pnut 4y ago
  Keeping up with the Jeonses, that's how they get you.
  - 4y ago

agilob 4y ago

We're talking about 4 days work week for adults, but no one is talking about 40 hours work week for kids. 7 hours of school, 3 hours of homework, then karate, piano, swimming and football on weekends.

bmitc 4y ago
I've complained about that my whole life. Going from high school to college was wonderful because I had so much time time my first semester in college. (I ended up blowing that by overloading myself in subsequent semesters, but that's another story.) I always hated the idea of homework in school (outside of college/university) because I have never understood being at "home" but still required to do "work" for a place I just spent 7-8 hours at and most days 2-3 more hours for sports or band.
- andai 4y ago
  I just never did homework, half-assed projects and did the bare minimum for tests. I had an unusually liberal school though. I probably would have dropped out if it wasn't illegal here.
Sharlin 4y ago
If those karate, piano, swimming and football are intense enough to be counted as "work" rather than leisure, then something is wrong. Are hobbies not a thing anymore?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  It depends on the intensity and the question of whether or not they are voluntary or mandatory.
- searchableguy 4y ago
  Many kids are forced to do these activities to pad their application for colleges and sometimes it is for show and prestige.
  - 4y ago

Silverback_VII 4y ago

> I certainly would not choose to have children in these circumstances. Reminds me of the opening scene of Idiocracy: https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA

yieldcrv 4y ago

Is nobody really doing anything irresponsible anymore, en masse? where is the party, hookup, pregnancy and carry-to-term scene? is that not happening, or is the party, hookup scene all just that risk-free right now - even when pregnancy occurs because the latter suggests that people really just don't want kids, and possibly never really did its hard for me to think that all of society uniformly is successfully planning for children now, instead of many children being a bunch of accidents that the parents just go along with

pjc50 4y ago
"Failure to plan is planning to fail": given the potentially life ruining costs of pregnancy and raising a child, there's a lot of incentive to not make that mistake. > where is the party, hookup, pregnancy and carry-to-term scene? is that not happening Did that ever really happen in Korea? Even in the West having a "hookup scene" in the first place was a product of having effective contraception available, and a whole set of controversial cultural changes.
lr4444lr 4y ago
This kind of planning implicitly happens when women are expected to have a career instead of finding their identity in successful motherhood. I don't know much anything at all about Korean women's professional labor, but I'd be very surprised if it did not play a role. Country fertility rates correlate extremely well with female full time non domestic labor participation.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Great, I’ll keep that in mind

sendfoods 4y ago

What has changed since your grandparents generation? Where did this (need for?) competitiveness come from?

sumedh 4y ago
Probably population growth, less resources more people.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Probably they used to be able to keep the poor, poor via something brutally effective and simple, like only a tiny minority even getting the chance to go to decent schools or universities. Now they need a lot of wasted effort to convince people that the people at the top are working really hard and deserve it to maintain the same elite dynamic. evidence: 7% got to tertiary education in 1975, and recently peaked at above 100% (not sure how that works to be honest, but the trend is clear) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=KR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=K... More evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality_in_South_K...
floxy 4y ago
Might a contributing factor be the older generation saw in their lifetime the change from extreme poverty to relative wealth brought about by the industriousness of the population? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River#/media/File:GDP_history_Since_1950_~_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River#/medi...

adrianN 4y ago

Well if competitiveness is the reason for low birth rates, this should fix itself once the older generations age out of their posts and the companies need to look for replacements among a much smaller workforce.

creakingstairs 4y ago
Ah but the younger generations will need to support the older non longer working people who also happens to have more votes. Korean national pension is going to run out in 10 years or so, and there is already talk of raising the mandatory contribution from 9% to 18%.

noneeeed 4y ago

I have friends who spent a couple of years in Korea and they get quite sad when they talk about the kids they saw. They just seemed to have no life outside of an endless stream of classes and tutors. I'm trying to strike a balance with my kids. We encourage them to do things like learn music, take up sports etc, but not let that just consume all their free time. I want them to have time to just play freely, read comics, or just be a bit bored sometimes.

winReInstall 4y ago

This whole experience sounds very labour camp like. Minus the electric fence. The way out is no longer that easy. Of course the decorations are nicer and there are some who are kept around to work as "worser off" examples. But all in all, i guess most would cheer for the fall of this.

shaneos 4y ago

This is very accurate. I’m Irish, and when my Korean wife and I were leaving the US with our two young kids, Korea wasn’t even considered as a place to raise them. She had such a needlessly tough time as a kid, and her siblings are having to put their young kids through exactly the same exhausting upbringing. It’s not worth it. We’re luckily to have the choice of moving home to Europe and raising our kids in a way that they get to play a lot (I’m writing this while on a bench in a playground with them bouncing around in the sunshine) and also have school, art and sports. Korea is actively discouraging Koreans from raising their kids there, especially if they have any other option

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rukuu001 4y ago

Spent a year there 20 years ago. Even then I was horrified by the lifestyle.

TwoFerMaggie 4y ago

> you have tired and jaded people without a fun childhood Man this hits really hard because I spent my first 20 years growing up in China... Good thing is that now I'm in a much less authoritarian place with a job that has decent work-life balance. Have been trying to cultivate some hobbies in the past few years, feels like I've been trying to reclaim the childhood I never had.

homeland221 4y ago
Good for you. Hope if your children will have a better childhood!
loldk 4y ago

finikytou 4y ago

the difference also is that your father generation (if he is 50 or more) did not really have a lot of good job. most of the jobs were blue collar. now it changed a lot as most of the jobs are really for the highly educated and its very competitive

memcg 4y ago

Could you please describe the impact on retirement and caring for aging parents. Are children expected to take care of their parents?

creakingstairs 4y ago
Well that's a bit complicated. Traditionally, yes. Korea has been a Confucian society, which meant that the eldest son gets the parent's house, lives with them and takes care of them. Incidentally, being a wife of the eldest son is also very hard, because you are supposed to take care of your in-laws (boy do I have some horror stories). With modernisation, this has changed. 1. Most women no longer wants to be servants for the in-laws (rightfully so) and wants to live separately 2. With less children, you won't necessarily have a son. So now, parents live separately, until they are unable to do so anymore. When this happens, the children might take them into their house and care for them or admit them into hospice or retirement home. You might ask, what happens if your children don't take care of you and you don't have money? Well you are kinda f-ed, as seen with the high elderly poverty rate. > [Korea has] the highest elderly poverty rate among OECD countries https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871725/#:~:text=The%20poverty%20rate%20of%20senior,Source%3A%20OECD%20%5B6%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871725/#:~:tex.... Oh, Korean national pension is also set to run out within 10 years or so, which will make the issue worse and/or make the future generation pay disproportionate amount of tax :)))

loldk 4y ago