SEOUL, March 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s household debt is rising rapidly in comparison to economic growth, and is nearing the size of the nation’s GDP. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on March 18, in last year’s Q3 South Korean household debt stood at 94.4 percent of GDP. This figure marked [...]
SEJONG, Mar. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ direct purchases from foreign countries rose to a record high last year on rising demand for cheaper and different products, customs data showed Tuesday. A total of US$2.11 billion worth of foreign goods was directly bought by South Korean shoppers via overseas internet shopping malls last year, [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — People suffering from Parkinson’s disease and depression are the most susceptible to committing suicide, a survey showed Monday. Parkinson’s disease patients have 4.72 times higher chances of committing suicide than those who do not have the disease, according to the survey of 300,232 people conducted by professor Kim Doh-kwan [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The burden of buying a house in Seoul has risen to a 6-year high as demand for homes in the affluent Gangnam district surged despite the government’s measures to cool the property market, data showed Monday. The Korea Housing Affordability Index rose to 116.7 in the fourth-quarter of last [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Monthly spending on private education rose 33 percent last year compared with 10 years earlier, a survey showed Saturday, pointing to South Koreans’ zeal for education. Households spent a monthly average of 384,000 won (US$359.38) per child on private tutoring in 2017, up from 288,000 won in 2007, according [...]
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — On the rise are “twilight divorces”, a term referring to the ending of marriages by couples in their golden years, and with their increased frequency is a growing number of individuals living off income from their ex-spouse’s pension through pension splitting. Pension splitting was introduced in 1999 for divorcees [...]
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Quick, simple and easy is how a growing number of South Koreans are choosing to handle their transactions, evidenced by a recent study that revealed 51.7 percent of 2,530 adults (ages 25 – 64) use an e-payment service offered by credit card firms, retailers and internet companies such as [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean children aged between three and eight spend nearly three hours per day on smartphones, televisions and personal computers, a survey showed Friday. They spent an average of 177 minutes every day on watching television or playing with smartphones and personal computers, according to the survey of mothers [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — YouTube has emerged as the most popular social networking service (SNS) in South Korea with nearly three in 10 SNS users relying on the platform, a poll showed Friday. According to the January survey of 200 South Koreans aged 20 or older, 27.6 percent of respondents picked YouTube as [...]
SEOUL, March 15 (Korea Bizwire) — A study conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare has found that the average monthly wage of South Korean physicians was 13.04 million won in 2016, an amount 4.6 times and 8.7 times higher than the average monthly salaries of full-time laborers (2.79 million won) and non-regular workers [...]