Unemployment, Late Marriage, and No Baby
By Kuk Min-ho, Professor, Dept. of Sociology
In Korea, with the Confucian tradition, well-educated people dominated the society and only the educated people could become government officials in the most respectable jobs. Koreans believe that education is the best way to climb the ladder of success. Korean parents are the world's highest spenders on their children's education. More than 80 percent of Korean high school graduates go to college. That's why there are more than 400 colleges in Korea which churn out an over-abundance of college graduates.
The problem is that Korean society is not able to create decent jobs that can employ all the college graduates. Around 500,000 youths are unemployed and not enough new jobs are being created to address the youth unemployment in Korea. Most college graduates want to get jobs in the biggest economic conglomerates, chaebol groups. But there are not enough chaebol jobs to go around. Young college graduates do not considering working at SMEs, where payment and welfare entitlements are too low. The result is that many of the SME jobs go unfilled. Over-education has now become a grave problem creating Itaebaek, mostly unemployed 20-somethings.
Youth unemployment has become a big social problem, with more than one in five people aged 15-29 out of work. The unemployment rate among those aged 15-29 was 6.8 percent, more than double the general unemployment rate of 2.9 percent in 2011. The problem is even more dismal for graduates of some regional universities, many of whom have given up efforts to find jobs.
Unemployment problem can cause the delay of marriage. Many people want to marry once they are financially secure, and that's happening later in their 30s. They put off marriage due to the high cost of buying a home and raising children. Some say that getting married later, even in the late 30s or early 40s, is much better. Now attitudes toward marriage are changing. There is no longer a socially accepted age of marriage. People are getting married at different ages. The average age when Koreans married for the first time was 31.8 for men and 28.9 for women in 2011.
Late marriage causes low fertility or no babies. People want to find companionship after enjoying their independent life to the full through traveling and dating. To have children is no more a main goal in marriage. Many of the young married couples do not want to have babies. Korea's fertility rate dropped to 1.15 in 2011. The later they marry the more it becomes a problem choosing whether to have a baby or not.
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