Two in 3 Seoulites in 20s, 30s Say Life is Hard in S. Korea: Survey

People walk across an intersection in Seoul on March 24, 2020. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, June 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly 2 out of 3 Seoulites in their 20s and 30s believe South Korea is not an ideal country for them to live in, a survey showed Thursday.

The Seoul Institute, a city-run think tank, said it polled 1,000 Seoul residents between the ages of 20 and 39 from July 7-14 last year and found that 65.5 percent disagreed with the statement “Compared with other countries, Korea is a country where young people can live reasonably well.”

Of the 65.5 percent, 32.1 percent completely disagreed and 33.4 percent somewhat disagreed with the statement.

Only 10 percent said they believe they can lead a good enough life here, while the remaining 24.5 percent said they neither disagree nor agree with the statement.

On the question of whether those in their 20s and 30s have more social and economic opportunities than those in their 40s and 50s, 63.3 percent responded negatively. Only 18.1 percent answered positively.

On the statement “Our society guarantees a fair outcome in line with efforts,” 60.4 percent said they completely or somewhat disagreed, while 14.3 percent strongly or somewhat agreed.

Asset inequality was cited as the biggest area of disparity for young Seoulites at 33 percent, followed by income inequality at 26.6 percent, employment inequality at 16.2 percent and housing inequality at 10.5 percent.

The survey showed that only 24.8 percent believed they could climb up the social ladder, down 17 percentage points from 41.8 percent in a similar survey conducted in 2009.

Meanwhile, on a 10-point scale measuring overall satisfaction with life, the average score was 4.63, where 5 is “average.”

(Yonhap)