South Korea's Urban-Rural Challenges

For many young South Koreans, Seoul is a magnet. I had to come to Seoul because all the jobs I wanted were in Seoul. In the country with the world's lowest birth rate, is the capital Seoul to blame? And the stakes are high if South Korea does not rebalance its rural-urban divide. So if this kind of low fertility rate and extended life expectancy continues, South Korean The economy and society disappear in the next seven bad years. South Korea's summer holiday has just come to an end. But instead of taking a break, engineering freshman Lee Dong-hyun spent the time studying for an English proficiency test. I wanted to play during the holidays, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to play. I was worried about the competition, so I told my parents that I wanted to go to a TOEIC academy and develop myself. I want to go to an academy like now. I'm trying to do whatever I can. My academy is in Gangnam. Originally from the rural province of Gangwon, Dong-hyun's parents had sent him to a high school in Gyeonggi, closer to Seoul. It's all in hopes that he would make it to one of the country's top universities, all located in the capital. Our school has about 10 students from Seoul National University a year. South Korea has nearly 200 universities. The most prestigious ones can be found in the capital. They are known as the SCA universities, an acronym for Seoul National University. Korea University and Yonsei University. Together, they take in the top 1% of students who sit for the college entrance exams annually. Graduating from a university in Seoul is seen as a seal of success. There is a very interesting research on the future income gaps of the prestigious universities in Korea, in Seoul and other local universities. The gap is so huge, over like 1,000 US dollars per month for the rest of the life. So that's why young people in their early 20s are pursuing universities located in Seoul area. Once you get into the prestigious school in Seoul, your lifelong income is kind of guaranteed. Dong-hyun's story mirrors a much larger trend in South Korea. All the best opportunities are found in Seoul and its surroundings, prompting decades of internal migration to the area. As for Dong-hyun, out of six applications, he only received one offer. To Korea University's Sejong campus. When I say I go to Sejong campus, people say, oh, Goryeo University? I just drink, but it's Sejong campus. I think I'm being told how people see me when I study too much. For example, I think that's what I'm being told. I think that's what I'm being told. There are many good students at school and many universities in Seoul. I feel like I failed because I couldn't go to a university in Seoul. Education is a key driver for internal migration to the Seoul metropolitan area. Last year, there was a record high of 92,000 people who shifted to Seoul for academics. Whether Dong Hyun decides to go to Sejong or transfer school, he ultimately sees Seoul as his destiny. Seoul is the dream. for many South Koreans, so much so that the population of the Seoul metropolitan area, which is made up of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, has ballooned in the last six decades. Today, over 50% of the population reside here, just one-eighth of the country's territory. Internal migration into Seoul metropolitan area skyrocketed in the 1960s and 1970s, when South Korea... Begun its economic development strategy. But after 1990s, the migration into Seoul area is kind of stabilized. It is true that geographically Seoul and Seoul people sucks all the good things from all over the Korean territory. In Korea, the population concentration in Seoul was not always like this. After the war in 1950s, In the process of reconstruction, many things like urban development began to focus on Seoul. As many people started to come to Seoul, housing and public transportation were also supplied. As a result, the environment improved and more people came to Seoul. South Korea is the 14th largest economy in the world, boasting a GDP of 1.76 trillion US dollars. The Seoul metropolitan area produces more than half of this. This success comes at the expense of its rural areas. South Korea's countryside is emptying out. Out of 243 local governments in South Korea, 89... have been designated at risk of extinction. Almost 80 local governments also issue about extinction issue because they are less than maybe 30,000 or 20,000 population right now. They have big land but they rest. So which means some part of Korea, there are not enough people just making one the local government. Also, we cannot use... More effectively, so that extinction means in our society is a lot of the burden. Even the second largest city in Korea, which is Busan, is about to collapse because the population is declining so fast. Busan's people, particularly young people in their 20s and 30s, are moving quickly to Seoul area. The size of the Old people over 65 years old is more than doubles than that of the 20s and 30s in Busan area. That is a very significant signal that Busan is getting very old and Busan's economy can maintain their size and functions because of this population problem. Conversely, 30% of Seoul's population today is made up of those aged 20 to 30, making it the city with the highest proportion of young people in the country. Apart from education, people also migrate to the capital area for employment. Former elementary school teacher Min Sang-gi moved to Seoul after switching careers to become an IT developer. When I first started my career, I looked for jobs in development areas in Gwangju. I also looked for jobs in Busan, which is also known as a big city nearby. I looked for jobs that I wanted to find in Seoul, but they were all in Seoul. Opportunities are now concentrated in Seoul. Over 50% of large companies with over 300 employees are found here. A similar proportion of mid-sized companies have set up headquarters in the capital. The environment that innovative people prefer is in Seoul. People and companies prefer Seoul. This is a situation that is being strengthened. So, it is expected that the population shrinkage in Seoul will continue for a long time. This Seoul area is too much. populated with many people and many firms. So we have to pay huge cost in maintaining the basic functions of the Seoul metropolitan area in terms of the highways, subways, and transportation and education, everything. South Korea is currently going through a demographic crisis as birth rates plummet and people grow older. Why is the concentration of the population in Seoul Making the problem worse. I used to drive a car, but now I have to use public transportation. I feel uncomfortable about that. It has been two months since 35-year-old Sang-ki started working in Seoul. It's about a tenth of the size of the place I used to live in. That's a little uncomfortable. The bathroom is small, and the shower room is small. That's uncomfortable. Sang-hee stays in a gold-plated room. Goshiwon, a single occupancy room, originally designed for students to prepare for exams. Rooms are as small as 3.5 square meters. It is one of the cheapest housing rental options in South Korea, with prices ranging from 200 to 500 US dollars per month. Some 158,000 resided in Goshiwans in 2023. I feel that the cost of food in Seoul is higher than the cost of food I used to consume in Gwangju. In this case, I have to cook or buy all the meals outside because I can't afford it. Compared to my daily expenses, I think I have an additional 60% of expenses. According to real estate portal R114, prices of apartments in Seoul rose by 144% in the past 10 years. The average wage, however, only grew by 3.5%. problems and disadvantages. The most important thing is the rise in living expenses and the rise in housing prices. The apartment rent for like a standard three-bedroom and two-bedroom is about US$1,000 per month on average in Seoul area. But if you want to buy a house in Seoul, it is more than US$1,000,000. with the same size the house. So it is technically speaking not possible for young workers who just got a job to buy a house. in Seoul area. Fashion designer Heda moved to Seoul from Taebaek, five hours away from the capital. Taebaek is a small country, so it's hard to find a job. So I thought I should find a job in Seoul. There is the largest fabric market in Seoul. And... and I had to stay here because of the busy schedule. Heda set up her own studio in 2017, selling custom-made clothing. Eleven years since she arrived in Seoul, the 31-year-old still feels the pinch of living in the city. I feel like I'm able to endure every month. Apart from the high cost of living, Competitive pressure also keeps the young on edge. Based on a 2023 survey by Statistics Korea, more than half of the one-odd million unemployed South Koreans hold a college degree or higher. On average, respondents took 10 months to find a job. I feel pressured about that. I keep studying even after I get off work. I think there is a lot of competition and pressure. Because everyone lives too hard without turning off the lights until late at night, I naturally feel like I shouldn't be behind the competition. I think I have to say that. I had a very strong mindset that I had to win. I've been thinking that I should work harder and make more achievements. Well, we say that in Korean labor market, we have both of the hell and the haven. It is a hell for young people and haven for middle aged. The unemployment rate used to be around 10%, very high compared to other OECD member countries before the COVID pandemic. But that declined down to 7.5% recently. But for those who are in the ages between 40s and 50s, the unemployment rate is about 1.5%. But for new college graduates, it is extremely difficult to get a job. I mean, the decent jobs in South Korea. Since the pandemic, cost and competition led more to leave the capital. Seoul's population fell below 10 million for the first time in 2020. But many simply moved. to the capital's periphery. So, the pressures of urban living show little signs of abating. It's a situation like that. It's a situation like that. So Seoul is still under pressure from the population. I'm working in Gwangju, so my wife is looking for a job in Seoul. So we're looking for areas within Seoul that we can handle. If that's impossible, we're looking for houses in the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do near Seoul. While wedding bells sound for Min, others have forgone or held off marriage and children. Marriage rates have seen a 40% drop in the decade from 2013 to 2023. In 2019, alarm bells were sounded when South Korea's total fertility rate hit a record low of 0.98 children per woman. Today, that number has fallen precipitously to 0.68, the lowest in the world. But that's accounting for the whole country. It is much worse in Seoul. where in some areas it is as low as 0.55. This figure falls to the third-largest figure in the world. ...falls far short of the replacement rate of 2.1, the average number of children required per woman to sustain population levels. So one of the main reasons for that low birth rate is related to living expenses in South Korea, particularly the housing prices and the cost on educating kids. the female workers balancing between raising kids and hard working at the company. All this related to highly populated situation in Seoul metropolitan area. According to Beijing TingTang, UWA population research institute, South Korea is the most expensive country to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age. Well, South Korean Government is supporting public education until high school, but the problem is private education. So as of last year, per single high school students, middle school students, elementary school students, on average it costs more than 550 US dollars per month. So if you have two kids, you spend more than $1,000 for kids education every month. So that is about a 40 percent of the young people's income. So that makes very difficult to raise birth rate in South Korea. So, South Korea finds itself in a quandary. Seoul's monopoly on opportunities draws young Koreans to the capital. But when they're here, the environment stymies their likelihood of getting married and having children. Meanwhile, The rural areas are depopulating, causing more young people to leave. The cycle has prompted the government to declare the shrinking population a national emergency. The speed of the aging is the fastest among any country in the whole world. We say that after 50 years, the population of South Korea will be 50% of today. So 26 million population is not a size to maintain. South Korean economy and there are lots of problems related that we can't maintain the military power, we can't support the production of goods and services and so on. So low fertility rate is a serious disaster to the future of the Korean society and economy. President Yoon Seok-yool announced in June this year that a new ministry called the Population Strategy Department will be set up to tackle the low birth rate. I will come a month. We realize the issue is very big. Our people also realize this is a very important issue in our future, but there is no solution. So I'm just a little bit worried because the government is too much behind because the issue already happened. One policy, at least, does not appear to be working. Handing out baby bonuses. Since 2022, The government has handed out 1,400 US dollars to families for every first child born. But in this time, fertility rate still declined. So recently, South Korean government and researchers on this matter recognized that money does not help out to raising the birth rate. We have to modify the fundamentals of social system for females, the working conditions, the education. facilities and so on. Without balancing between Seoul area and local area we can tackle the problems of the declining population and low fertility. So what is happening in these local rural areas? This is Gagok Elementary School in Danyang County, two hours from Seoul by train. In Danyang, there were about 30 elementary schools. Now, there are about 10 left. There are five sixth graders, so I think five of them will graduate from school. There are still six months left. Right now, Danyang is home to less than 30,000 residents, a third the size of its population in the 1980s. Because I have children, I don't have any cultural infrastructure in Danyang. So many people leave. South Korea's low birth rate is well documented. One knock-on effect of this has been the closure of schools as student cohorts shrank. Between 2017 to 2022, 193 schools across South Korea have shut it. But of these, almost 9 in 10 were located outside of the Seoul metropolitan area. Yeon Seok has been teaching for 15 years before he was transferred to this school in 2022. When I first came to Seoul, there were about 18 students in the main school. There were 5th and 6th graders. In general, students in one classroom... There are about 18 people. In terms of the whole school, there are about 100 people. There is a problem with low-income Korean society. Small-scale schools, like the rural schools in Danyang, have a more serious problem with low-income people. School closure is just part of what is happening in the rural regions. From businesses, to eateries, to houses, Signs of life are slowly dwindling in the countryside. But if you look back at this, because people came to Seoul, there are advantages in the metropolitan area, but the countryside has the opposite effect. Congressman Han, as part of the National Assembly, helped pass the Special Act on Balanced National Development in 2020. It designated 89 cities, Counties and districts as depopulation areas, one of which is Danyang. These areas are at risk of disappearing due to population decline. It's a very serious situation that shows a very extreme gap. The decline in the population of rural areas is not only in Korea, but also in other countries around the world. The problem is that Korea is quite severe and the speed is quite fast. Other countries in the West are It took hundreds of years for the city to grow. On the other hand, in Korea, It was a pattern that grew into a huge city in a few decades. As the urbanization progressed rapidly, the population in rural areas decreased rapidly. The speed of aging is very high. Also, at the same time, the fertility rate is very low. the lowest in the world, which means it combined the speed of the depopulation of the rural area in Korea is maybe much higher because of different kind of the issues come together and it's a very hard hit on the rural area. It is not just areas far from the Seoul metropolitan area that are disappearing. If you take a look at the outskirts of Incheon, and Gyeonggi, villages are emptying out, such as Maegok-ri in Yangju City, where 76-year-old Yoon Cheong-jun lives. I move to Okjeong-ri, Shin-si-ga-ji. In the countryside, people who are 65 years old or older than me are average age. But in the rural areas, there are only old people. Most of them move to the city. I'm a little bit like that. Last year, I wore a dress for a few days at the Pyo-Ryeom. It takes about an hour and 40 minutes to get to the university hospital. But it takes a lot of time for people with cars to get there. And it takes about two hours for people without cars to get there by bus. And in the case of big cities, the population is decreasing and the economy is not growing. So it's very difficult to expand public transportation, medical services, educational facilities, and cultural and cultural facilities to the public. So, people tend to move to places that they don't like to live in or live in. And people are more and more imported to Seoul. I think that's happening repeatedly. South Korea is set to become a super-age society in 2025, which means that 20% of its population will be over the age of 65. By 2050, 4 in 10 Koreans will be aged. So that makes lots of problems in rural areas and rural governments because they can't collect a decent amount of taxes from the people. So local governments and local areas... Local areas... It's about to collapse in many different areas, but we are not ready for that right now. Most countries, same things happen, social cost is very high. Also we have the National Health Service issue, so pension is, we must pay back our entire Beijing population. That is a big impact on our, maybe, government side. revenue and then there are the expenditures so maybe we might lose our the economic growth we might lose our economic status south of Seoul in unsung the aging population has led to a shortage of workers without sufficient help 73 year old Park Joon Ryu farms from dawn to dusk like I'm also I can't do this properly because my body doesn't follow me. The people who help me are my family members, and my youngest son is the oldest. So I have only my family members. It's hard to keep track of my work. The lowest average here is about 60. Then all of them are... In their 70s and 80s, they should have a young generation in the countryside, but they don't have one, so it's not good to leave. And the house is hot, so they don't want to work. It's too hot, so the temperature goes up to 35 to 40 degrees on average, so it's too hot to work. It's a war, so the weather is bad. There's a lot of trouble because of the disease. If we don't respond to this and just disappear, For example, the problem of food sovereignty. If you can't respond to agriculture, it will appear right away. The food sovereignty of Korea can be a problem that disappears. This is a great crisis. To reverse the rural extinction, since 2022, the government has set aside 750 million US dollars per year for a period of 10 years. The goal is to revitalise the countryside and attract young people to live and work there. Last year, local governments proposed projects such as boosting tourism, attracting companies, remodelling old houses and constructing educational facilities. In 2022, 78.5% of the population will be young. If there is no job after graduation, there is no reason for young people to stay in the countryside. If you get a lot of benefits from the government and get a lot of benefits from the local people, you will definitely get a lot of benefits. In the meantime, as young South Koreans remain in the cities, Migrant labor is plugging the gap, but is this the answer to Korea's worker woes? Cambodian migrant worker Bun Thai was 25 years old when he started working on this farm in An Sam, owned by South Korean Ji Tae-Sung. South Korea has no one to work for. We have one foreign worker, but we have a few women in Korea. South Korea opened its doors to low-skilled migrant workers from Asia since 1980 and is becoming more reliant on foreign labor. Two years ago, The number of non-professional work visas issued stood at 69,000. Last year, the figure doubled to 120,000. By the end of 2024, this could reach 165,000. We are happy to be here. We are happy to be here. We are happy to be here. Statistics Korea predicts that the proportion of foreigners in the country will double in 20 years. As of now, the size of the foreign workers is about 1.5 million, according to official statistics from Korea. And most of these foreign workers are working at rural areas, particularly in agricultural industries. small and medium-sized companies'jobs, which is kind of avoided by Korean general workers because that is very hard and that is kind of dangerous. To enable more migrant workers to make up for the lack of workers, South Korea has a variety of visa schemes, differentiated by length of stay. And then another one is depending on the season, for example, when you're farming, South Korea is a four-season country, so there are few farmers in winter. So when farmers are building crops, they come back home and stay for about six months. That's about it. However, South Korea is a highly homogenous country. The influx of foreign workers has met some resistance, with reports of abuse and discrimination. We have to be prepared. In the past, I was very busy. I had to work hard, I had to pay for my rent, I had to work hard to earn money. I had a lot of things to do, but I was afraid of being like them. I was afraid of being like them. But I was still determined to work hard. I was still determined to work hard. I was still determined to work hard. When I first started working, I didn't have any worries. I was able to learn and do things. I was able to do things. There is a very extreme sentiment. It is improving little by little, but in the end, that wrong perception is like committing a crime. It is so much of a cause. Then, earlier this year, Thomson Reuters Foundation published a scathing report comparing the seasonal farm labour to modern-day slavery. Some workers had their passports and pay withheld by brokers. Over 100 people are still dying in Korea. It's a huge number compared to the number of migrant workers. It's a shame that so many people die in Korea just to make money and live a happy life. Apart from addressing the shortage of workers in rural areas, the country is trying to rebalance its population distribution. The solution? Moving people out of Seoul by building a new administrative capital, Sejong. Construction began in 2007 and is set to complete by 2031. The city is now home to almost 400,000 people. As of 2022, nearly 90 central administrative organisations, state think tanks and government-affiliated institutions have moved. However, key government bodies remain in Seoul, like the Foreign, Defence and Unification Ministries. While President Yoon Seok-yool has pledged to make Sejong City work, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. The government people, government employees in Sejong City do not want to go down to Sejong City. They just leave their families in Seoul and they commute between Seoul and Sejong area. may be solving itself. Over the past decade, Seoul has experienced a net outflow of approximately 860,000 residents. Those who quit the city life for the countryside are part of a phenomenon known as kwi-chon. I came to Korea because I like nature. 70-year-old Park Young-ja made the move 15 years ago. I'm still living here. My daughter-in-law is also here. I've been working in the city for 4-5 million won. I can't even follow the city's price. I work from dawn to late at night. I teach rural life to the people who come from the city as the most precious and precious neighbors. The situation that the population gives is the same everywhere in the country, I think it would be better if we try. The situation is being promoted as a solution to the problem of the rural and rural villages. However, there are not many rural or rural villages. In Korea, we have implemented many policies in the past to develop the economy. We have invested a lot of resources. Nevertheless, the population is increasingly growing in the metropolitan area, including Seoul. A demographic national emergency. That's how the South Korean government has characterized the country's population problem. And as Seoul continues to be a migration magnet while the rest of the country empties out, the crisis is still there. economy and society disappears in the next 100 years. So that is really an emergency situation as it is. So I think we should not respond to the situation now. The time is now.

For many young South Koreans, Seoul is a magnet. I had to come to Seoul because all the jobs I wanted were in Seoul. In the country with the world's lowest birth rate, is the capital Seoul to blame?

And the stakes are high if South Korea does not rebalance its rural-urban divide. So if this kind of low fertility rate and extended life expectancy continues, South Korean The economy and society disappear in the next seven bad years. South Korea's summer holiday has just come to an end.

But instead of taking a break, engineering freshman Lee Dong-hyun spent the time studying for an English proficiency test. I wanted to play during the holidays, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to play. I was worried about the competition, so I told my parents that I wanted to go to a TOEIC academy and develop myself. I want to go to an academy like now. I'm trying to do whatever I can.

My academy is in Gangnam. Originally from the rural province of Gangwon, Dong-hyun's parents had sent him to a high school in Gyeonggi, closer to Seoul. It's all in hopes that he would make it to one of the country's top universities, all located in the capital. Our school has about 10 students from Seoul National University a year.

South Korea has nearly 200 universities. The most prestigious ones can be found in the capital. They are known as the SCA universities, an acronym for Seoul National University.

Korea University and Yonsei University. Together, they take in the top 1% of students who sit for the college entrance exams annually. Graduating from a university in Seoul is seen as a seal of success.

There is a very interesting research on the future income gaps of the prestigious universities in Korea, in Seoul and other local universities. The gap is so huge, over like 1,000 US dollars per month for the rest of the life. So that's why young people in their early 20s are pursuing universities located in Seoul area.

Once you get into the prestigious school in Seoul, your lifelong income is kind of guaranteed. Dong-hyun's story mirrors a much larger trend in South Korea. All the best opportunities are found in Seoul and its surroundings, prompting decades of internal migration to the area. As for Dong-hyun, out of six applications, he only received one offer.

To Korea University's Sejong campus. When I say I go to Sejong campus, people say, oh, Goryeo University? I just drink, but it's Sejong campus.

I think I'm being told how people see me when I study too much. For example, I think that's what I'm being told. I think that's what I'm being told.

There are many good students at school and many universities in Seoul. I feel like I failed because I couldn't go to a university in Seoul. Education is a key driver for internal migration to the Seoul metropolitan area.

Last year, there was a record high of 92,000 people who shifted to Seoul for academics. Whether Dong Hyun decides to go to Sejong or transfer school, he ultimately sees Seoul as his destiny. Seoul is the dream. for many South Koreans, so much so that the population of the Seoul metropolitan area, which is made up of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, has ballooned in the last six decades. Today, over 50% of the population reside here, just one-eighth of the country's territory.

Internal migration into Seoul metropolitan area skyrocketed in the 1960s and 1970s, when South Korea... Begun its economic development strategy. But after 1990s, the migration into Seoul area is kind of stabilized.

It is true that geographically Seoul and Seoul people sucks all the good things from all over the Korean territory. In Korea, the population concentration in Seoul was not always like this. After the war in 1950s, In the process of reconstruction, many things like urban development began to focus on Seoul. As many people started to come to Seoul, housing and public transportation were also supplied.

As a result, the environment improved and more people came to Seoul. South Korea is the 14th largest economy in the world, boasting a GDP of 1.76 trillion US dollars. The Seoul metropolitan area produces more than half of this.

This success comes at the expense of its rural areas. South Korea's countryside is emptying out. Out of 243 local governments in South Korea, 89...

have been designated at risk of extinction. Almost 80 local governments also issue about extinction issue because they are less than maybe 30,000 or 20,000 population right now. They have big land but they rest.

So which means some part of Korea, there are not enough people just making one the local government. Also, we cannot use... More effectively, so that extinction means in our society is a lot of the burden.

Even the second largest city in Korea, which is Busan, is about to collapse because the population is declining so fast. Busan's people, particularly young people in their 20s and 30s, are moving quickly to Seoul area. The size of the Old people over 65 years old is more than doubles than that of the 20s and 30s in Busan area.

That is a very significant signal that Busan is getting very old and Busan's economy can maintain their size and functions because of this population problem. Conversely, 30% of Seoul's population today is made up of those aged 20 to 30, making it the city with the highest proportion of young people in the country. Apart from education, people also migrate to the capital area for employment.

Former elementary school teacher Min Sang-gi moved to Seoul after switching careers to become an IT developer. When I first started my career, I looked for jobs in development areas in Gwangju. I also looked for jobs in Busan, which is also known as a big city nearby.

I looked for jobs that I wanted to find in Seoul, but they were all in Seoul. Opportunities are now concentrated in Seoul. Over 50% of large companies with over 300 employees are found here.

A similar proportion of mid-sized companies have set up headquarters in the capital. The environment that innovative people prefer is in Seoul. People and companies prefer Seoul. This is a situation that is being strengthened.

So, it is expected that the population shrinkage in Seoul will continue for a long time. This Seoul area is too much. populated with many people and many firms. So we have to pay huge cost in maintaining the basic functions of the Seoul metropolitan area in terms of the highways, subways, and transportation and education, everything.

South Korea is currently going through a demographic crisis as birth rates plummet and people grow older. Why is the concentration of the population in Seoul Making the problem worse. I used to drive a car, but now I have to use public transportation.

I feel uncomfortable about that. It has been two months since 35-year-old Sang-ki started working in Seoul. It's about a tenth of the size of the place I used to live in.

That's a little uncomfortable. The bathroom is small, and the shower room is small. That's uncomfortable. Sang-hee stays in a gold-plated room. Goshiwon, a single occupancy room, originally designed for students to prepare for exams.

Rooms are as small as 3.5 square meters. It is one of the cheapest housing rental options in South Korea, with prices ranging from 200 to 500 US dollars per month. Some 158,000 resided in Goshiwans in 2023. I feel that the cost of food in Seoul is higher than the cost of food I used to consume in Gwangju. In this case, I have to cook or buy all the meals outside because I can't afford it. Compared to my daily expenses, I think I have an additional 60% of expenses.

According to real estate portal R114, prices of apartments in Seoul rose by 144% in the past 10 years. The average wage, however, only grew by 3.5%. problems and disadvantages. The most important thing is the rise in living expenses and the rise in housing prices. The apartment rent for like a standard three-bedroom and two-bedroom is about US$1,000 per month on average in Seoul area.

But if you want to buy a house in Seoul, it is more than US$1,000,000. with the same size the house. So it is technically speaking not possible for young workers who just got a job to buy a house. in Seoul area. Fashion designer Heda moved to Seoul from Taebaek, five hours away from the capital.

Taebaek is a small country, so it's hard to find a job. So I thought I should find a job in Seoul. There is the largest fabric market in Seoul.

And... and I had to stay here because of the busy schedule. Heda set up her own studio in 2017, selling custom-made clothing.

Eleven years since she arrived in Seoul, the 31-year-old still feels the pinch of living in the city. I feel like I'm able to endure every month. Apart from the high cost of living, Competitive pressure also keeps the young on edge. Based on a 2023 survey by Statistics Korea, more than half of the one-odd million unemployed South Koreans hold a college degree or higher. On average, respondents took 10 months to find a job.

I feel pressured about that. I keep studying even after I get off work. I think there is a lot of competition and pressure. Because everyone lives too hard without turning off the lights until late at night, I naturally feel like I shouldn't be behind the competition.

I think I have to say that. I had a very strong mindset that I had to win. I've been thinking that I should work harder and make more achievements.

Well, we say that in Korean labor market, we have both of the hell and the haven. It is a hell for young people and haven for middle aged. The unemployment rate used to be around 10%, very high compared to other OECD member countries before the COVID pandemic. But that declined down to 7.5% recently. But for those who are in the ages between 40s and 50s, the unemployment rate is about 1.5%.

But for new college graduates, it is extremely difficult to get a job. I mean, the decent jobs in South Korea. Since the pandemic, cost and competition led more to leave the capital.

Seoul's population fell below 10 million for the first time in 2020. But many simply moved. to the capital's periphery. So, the pressures of urban living show little signs of abating. It's a situation like that. It's a situation like that.

So Seoul is still under pressure from the population. I'm working in Gwangju, so my wife is looking for a job in Seoul. So we're looking for areas within Seoul that we can handle. If that's impossible, we're looking for houses in the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do near Seoul. While wedding bells sound for Min, others have forgone or held off marriage and children.

Marriage rates have seen a 40% drop in the decade from 2013 to 2023. In 2019, alarm bells were sounded when South Korea's total fertility rate hit a record low of 0.98 children per woman. Today, that number has fallen precipitously to 0.68, the lowest in the world. But that's accounting for the whole country.

It is much worse in Seoul. where in some areas it is as low as 0.55. This figure falls to the third-largest figure in the world.

...falls far short of the replacement rate of 2.1, the average number of children required per woman to sustain population levels. So one of the main reasons for that low birth rate is related to living expenses in South Korea, particularly the housing prices and the cost on educating kids. the female workers balancing between raising kids and hard working at the company.

All this related to highly populated situation in Seoul metropolitan area. According to Beijing TingTang, UWA population research institute, South Korea is the most expensive country to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age. Well, South Korean Government is supporting public education until high school, but the problem is private education. So as of last year, per single high school students, middle school students, elementary school students, on average it costs more than 550 US dollars per month. So if you have two kids, you spend more than $1,000 for kids education every month.

So that is about a 40 percent of the young people's income. So that makes very difficult to raise birth rate in South Korea. So, South Korea finds itself in a quandary.

Seoul's monopoly on opportunities draws young Koreans to the capital. But when they're here, the environment stymies their likelihood of getting married and having children. Meanwhile, The rural areas are depopulating, causing more young people to leave. The cycle has prompted the government to declare the shrinking population a national emergency.

The speed of the aging is the fastest among any country in the whole world. We say that after 50 years, the population of South Korea will be 50% of today. So 26 million population is not a size to maintain. South Korean economy and there are lots of problems related that we can't maintain the military power, we can't support the production of goods and services and so on. So low fertility rate is a serious disaster to the future of the Korean society and economy.

President Yoon Seok-yool announced in June this year that a new ministry called the Population Strategy Department will be set up to tackle the low birth rate. I will come a month. We realize the issue is very big.

Our people also realize this is a very important issue in our future, but there is no solution. So I'm just a little bit worried because the government is too much behind because the issue already happened. One policy, at least, does not appear to be working. Handing out baby bonuses. Since 2022, The government has handed out 1,400 US dollars to families for every first child born.

But in this time, fertility rate still declined. So recently, South Korean government and researchers on this matter recognized that money does not help out to raising the birth rate. We have to modify the fundamentals of social system for females, the working conditions, the education.

facilities and so on. Without balancing between Seoul area and local area we can tackle the problems of the declining population and low fertility. So what is happening in these local rural areas?

This is Gagok Elementary School in Danyang County, two hours from Seoul by train. In Danyang, there were about 30 elementary schools. Now, there are about 10 left.

There are five sixth graders, so I think five of them will graduate from school. There are still six months left. Right now, Danyang is home to less than 30,000 residents, a third the size of its population in the 1980s. Because I have children, I don't have any cultural infrastructure in Danyang.

So many people leave. South Korea's low birth rate is well documented. One knock-on effect of this has been the closure of schools as student cohorts shrank.

Between 2017 to 2022, 193 schools across South Korea have shut it. But of these, almost 9 in 10 were located outside of the Seoul metropolitan area. Yeon Seok has been teaching for 15 years before he was transferred to this school in 2022. When I first came to Seoul, there were about 18 students in the main school. There were 5th and 6th graders. In general, students in one classroom...

There are about 18 people. In terms of the whole school, there are about 100 people. There is a problem with low-income Korean society. Small-scale schools, like the rural schools in Danyang, have a more serious problem with low-income people. School closure is just part of what is happening in the rural regions.

From businesses, to eateries, to houses, Signs of life are slowly dwindling in the countryside. But if you look back at this, because people came to Seoul, there are advantages in the metropolitan area, but the countryside has the opposite effect. Congressman Han, as part of the National Assembly, helped pass the Special Act on Balanced National Development in 2020. It designated 89 cities, Counties and districts as depopulation areas, one of which is Danyang. These areas are at risk of disappearing due to population decline.

It's a very serious situation that shows a very extreme gap. The decline in the population of rural areas is not only in Korea, but also in other countries around the world. The problem is that Korea is quite severe and the speed is quite fast. Other countries in the West are It took hundreds of years for the city to grow. On the other hand, in Korea, It was a pattern that grew into a huge city in a few decades.

As the urbanization progressed rapidly, the population in rural areas decreased rapidly. The speed of aging is very high. Also, at the same time, the fertility rate is very low.

the lowest in the world, which means it combined the speed of the depopulation of the rural area in Korea is maybe much higher because of different kind of the issues come together and it's a very hard hit on the rural area. It is not just areas far from the Seoul metropolitan area that are disappearing. If you take a look at the outskirts of Incheon, and Gyeonggi, villages are emptying out, such as Maegok-ri in Yangju City, where 76-year-old Yoon Cheong-jun lives. I move to Okjeong-ri, Shin-si-ga-ji.

In the countryside, people who are 65 years old or older than me are average age. But in the rural areas, there are only old people. Most of them move to the city.

I'm a little bit like that. Last year, I wore a dress for a few days at the Pyo-Ryeom. It takes about an hour and 40 minutes to get to the university hospital.

But it takes a lot of time for people with cars to get there. And it takes about two hours for people without cars to get there by bus. And in the case of big cities, the population is decreasing and the economy is not growing.

So it's very difficult to expand public transportation, medical services, educational facilities, and cultural and cultural facilities to the public. So, people tend to move to places that they don't like to live in or live in. And people are more and more imported to Seoul. I think that's happening repeatedly.

South Korea is set to become a super-age society in 2025, which means that 20% of its population will be over the age of 65. By 2050, 4 in 10 Koreans will be aged. So that makes lots of problems in rural areas and rural governments because they can't collect a decent amount of taxes from the people. So local governments and local areas...

Local areas... It's about to collapse in many different areas, but we are not ready for that right now. Most countries, same things happen, social cost is very high.

Also we have the National Health Service issue, so pension is, we must pay back our entire Beijing population. That is a big impact on our, maybe, government side. revenue and then there are the expenditures so maybe we might lose our the economic growth we might lose our economic status south of Seoul in unsung the aging population has led to a shortage of workers without sufficient help 73 year old Park Joon Ryu farms from dawn to dusk like I'm also I can't do this properly because my body doesn't follow me.

The people who help me are my family members, and my youngest son is the oldest. So I have only my family members. It's hard to keep track of my work.

The lowest average here is about 60. Then all of them are... In their 70s and 80s, they should have a young generation in the countryside, but they don't have one, so it's not good to leave. And the house is hot, so they don't want to work. It's too hot, so the temperature goes up to 35 to 40 degrees on average, so it's too hot to work.

It's a war, so the weather is bad. There's a lot of trouble because of the disease. If we don't respond to this and just disappear, For example, the problem of food sovereignty.

If you can't respond to agriculture, it will appear right away. The food sovereignty of Korea can be a problem that disappears. This is a great crisis.

To reverse the rural extinction, since 2022, the government has set aside 750 million US dollars per year for a period of 10 years. The goal is to revitalise the countryside and attract young people to live and work there. Last year, local governments proposed projects such as boosting tourism, attracting companies, remodelling old houses and constructing educational facilities.

In 2022, 78.5% of the population will be young. If there is no job after graduation, there is no reason for young people to stay in the countryside. If you get a lot of benefits from the government and get a lot of benefits from the local people, you will definitely get a lot of benefits. In the meantime, as young South Koreans remain in the cities, Migrant labor is plugging the gap, but is this the answer to Korea's worker woes?

Cambodian migrant worker Bun Thai was 25 years old when he started working on this farm in An Sam, owned by South Korean Ji Tae-Sung. South Korea has no one to work for. We have one foreign worker, but we have a few women in Korea. South Korea opened its doors to low-skilled migrant workers from Asia since 1980 and is becoming more reliant on foreign labor. Two years ago, The number of non-professional work visas issued stood at 69,000.

Last year, the figure doubled to 120,000. By the end of 2024, this could reach 165,000. We are happy to be here. We are happy to be here.

We are happy to be here. Statistics Korea predicts that the proportion of foreigners in the country will double in 20 years. As of now, the size of the foreign workers is about 1.5 million, according to official statistics from Korea.

And most of these foreign workers are working at rural areas, particularly in agricultural industries. small and medium-sized companies'jobs, which is kind of avoided by Korean general workers because that is very hard and that is kind of dangerous. To enable more migrant workers to make up for the lack of workers, South Korea has a variety of visa schemes, differentiated by length of stay. And then another one is depending on the season, for example, when you're farming, South Korea is a four-season country, so there are few farmers in winter.

So when farmers are building crops, they come back home and stay for about six months. That's about it. However, South Korea is a highly homogenous country.

The influx of foreign workers has met some resistance, with reports of abuse and discrimination. We have to be prepared. In the past, I was very busy.

I had to work hard, I had to pay for my rent, I had to work hard to earn money. I had a lot of things to do, but I was afraid of being like them. I was afraid of being like them.

But I was still determined to work hard. I was still determined to work hard. I was still determined to work hard. When I first started working, I didn't have any worries. I was able to learn and do things.

I was able to do things. There is a very extreme sentiment. It is improving little by little, but in the end, that wrong perception is like committing a crime.

It is so much of a cause. Then, earlier this year, Thomson Reuters Foundation published a scathing report comparing the seasonal farm labour to modern-day slavery. Some workers had their passports and pay withheld by brokers. Over 100 people are still dying in Korea.

It's a huge number compared to the number of migrant workers. It's a shame that so many people die in Korea just to make money and live a happy life. Apart from addressing the shortage of workers in rural areas, the country is trying to rebalance its population distribution. The solution?

Moving people out of Seoul by building a new administrative capital, Sejong. Construction began in 2007 and is set to complete by 2031. The city is now home to almost 400,000 people. As of 2022, nearly 90 central administrative organisations, state think tanks and government-affiliated institutions have moved.

However, key government bodies remain in Seoul, like the Foreign, Defence and Unification Ministries. While President Yoon Seok-yool has pledged to make Sejong City work, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. The government people, government employees in Sejong City do not want to go down to Sejong City. They just leave their families in Seoul and they commute between Seoul and Sejong area.

may be solving itself. Over the past decade, Seoul has experienced a net outflow of approximately 860,000 residents. Those who quit the city life for the countryside are part of a phenomenon known as kwi-chon. I came to Korea because I like nature. 70-year-old Park Young-ja made the move 15 years ago.

I'm still living here. My daughter-in-law is also here. I've been working in the city for 4-5 million won.

I can't even follow the city's price. I work from dawn to late at night. I teach rural life to the people who come from the city as the most precious and precious neighbors.

The situation that the population gives is the same everywhere in the country, I think it would be better if we try. The situation is being promoted as a solution to the problem of the rural and rural villages. However, there are not many rural or rural villages.

In Korea, we have implemented many policies in the past to develop the economy. We have invested a lot of resources. Nevertheless, the population is increasingly growing in the metropolitan area, including Seoul.

A demographic national emergency. That's how the South Korean government has characterized the country's population problem. And as Seoul continues to be a migration magnet while the rest of the country empties out, the crisis is still there. economy and society disappears in the next 100 years. So that is really an emergency situation as it is.

So I think we should not respond to the situation now. The time is now.

Transcript for:South Korea's Urban-Rural Challenges

Transcript for:
South Korea's Urban-Rural Challenges