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South Korea is Collapsing Faster Than Any Nation in History
South Korea is Collapsing Faster Than Any Nation in History
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0:00
South Korea was supposed to be the future of the world.
0:03
A high-tech utopia. An unstoppable cultural juggernaut. But the truth
0:07
is far from the image the country portrays.
0:09
South Korea is mathematically deleting itself. It
0:12
is the first nation in history to enter a demographic death spiral that will see
0:16
its population drop by nearly 90% within 2 generations if current rates persist.
0:22
Why? Because it’s not a country anymore.
0:25
It's a collection of corporate fiefdoms that have optimized their citizens into extinction.
0:30
Walk through a South Korean town and it’s more than likely you’ll pass colorful,
0:34
completely abandoned schools. Since 1980, over 4,000 elementary, middle,
0:39
and high schools in the country have shut down. That’s more than double the
0:43
amount of schools that currently educate all of New York City.
0:46
I’s easy to see why.
0:48
In 1980, the country had 9.9 million enrolled students. By the end of 2025, that number
0:53
was down to 5.07 million. Half the nation’s student population simply wasn’t there anymore.
1:00
Where did they go?
1:01
Turns out, they were never born.
1:03
For a rich country, the replacement fertility level needed to keep the
1:07
population steady is around 2.1 children per woman. The number is higher than 2 to
1:11
account for the small number of children who may die before reproductive age.
1:15
In 2023, South Korea’s fertility rate dropped to a record 0.72. That’s less than one child per woman.
1:23
It’s now the lowest in the world. In fact, it’s the only OECD country under 1.0. At this pace,
1:29
the population could shrink by 90% in 2 generations without mass immigration.
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The implication is staggering.
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The near extinction of the Korean ethnicity and state as it exists today.
1:42
But this isn’t some unforeseen failure.
1:44
It’s not a surprise.
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It's the result of the South Korean system working
1:48
exactly as designed. A system that was set up almost 30 years ago in
1:52
response to a traumatic crisis. And the overhaul that was implemented to fix it…
1:57
South Korea was seen as an economic miracle during the late 1900s. After a brutal war,
2:02
North Korea spiraled further into poverty under a harsh dictatorship. Meanwhile,
2:07
South Korea surged onwards and upwards. From a per capita GDP of just $67 in 1953 - the
2:13
end of the Korean War - by the late 1990s, Koreans were making an average of $12,400.
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Until the IMF crisis of 1997 upended everything.
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It turned out that a lot of South Korea’s miraculous growth was unsustainable.
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Chaebols, the name for the country’s biggest, fastest growing companies,
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acquired a lot of short-term debt to keep expanding. It worked for a while,
2:35
but it left the country very vulnerable to sudden systemic shocks.
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In 1997, a crisis in the Thai baht led foreign investors to lose confidence
2:44
in many growing Asian economies. Foreign banks and investors pulled out their money,
2:48
and many asked South Korean companies to repay their debt obligations.
2:53
Immediately.
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But they didn’t have the cash on hand to do so. As companies paid back what they could,
2:58
they ran out of dollar reserves, and the Korean Won went into freefall. The
3:02
effect on South Korea was staggering. Unemployment almost tripled overnight,
3:06
from 2.6% to 7%. With their money now worthless, families stood in massive lines
3:12
to sell their gold jewelry and heirlooms in desperate hopes of staying afloat.
3:16
Eventually, South Korea’s government realized it needed help. It called the
3:19
IMF for a $60 billion bailout. But to get it, they had to change a few things about
3:25
how the country’s economy ran, introducing deregulation, privatization, and mass layoffs.
3:30
Those changes would have ripple effects leading to a nationwide crisis decades later.
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Before 1997, getting a job in one of South Korea’s growing companies was almost like a
3:41
lifetime guarantee of income. The labor market was stable, but also inflexible. To become
3:46
competitive and prioritize profits, South Korean companies started firing workers. Many of those
3:51
who remained were also demoted from “permanent” to “temporary” status, creating huge job insecurity.
3:57
Within a year, the middle class was almost cut in half. They had made up 60% of the South Korean
4:02
population in mid-1997. Just a year later, only 35% of the country counted itself as middle class.
4:10
These changes made to fix South Korea’s financial situation created a “dual economy” that still
4:15
exists to this day. Some workers get cushy jobs with decent wages and bonuses that set them up
4:20
for life. But most South Koreans are left in a neverending day to day race for survival.
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“Irregular” workers - who make up over 36% of South Korea’s labor market - earn less
4:31
than permanent workers and have almost no job security. For young people, there are
4:35
even fewer opportunities for job stability. More than 4 in 10 hold “irregular” jobs with low pay.
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This dual economy had led to an explosion in inequality.
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One that’s getting worse with each passing year.
4:48
From 2002 to 2024 alone, irregular South Korean workers went from earning about two-thirds of what
4:53
“regular” workers made, to just over half. The country’s middle class continues to disintegrate,
4:59
while the top tenth of Koreans hold almost half of the national wealth. As Professor
5:03
Kwak Geum-joo stated in a paper on wealth distribution, “the gap has become so deep that
5:08
poor people no longer believe it’s possible for them to improve their social standing.”
5:12
The generation raised in the IMF crisis years has never healed from the sudden
5:16
shock it created in their families and society. The Korea Development Institute
5:20
found that many Koreans seek jobs that offer stability and eschew risk-taking
5:25
ventures like entrepreneurship and running small businesses.
5:28
Despite all that, South Korea somehow rebounded.
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Hard.
5:32
The country is considered a financial success story. Since the crisis, GDP per capita has
5:36
almost quadrupled. The country has also suddenly become an international cultural sensation
5:41
thanks to the K-Wave, or “Hallyu” in Korean. And that’s not as accidental as it may seem.
5:47
But the mostly bright, fun Hallyu aesthetics hides a troubling reality.
5:52
The glossy nature and forward-seeming cultural exports of South Korea
5:55
have obscured the country’s dual economy from international view.
5:59
Because most Korean youth are being locked out of the good life.
6:03
Forever.
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Understanding the dark side of Korea’s economy means understanding the way
6:07
its biggest companies function. The ones that put the country on the map.
6:11
Chaebol translates roughly to conglomerate. Though in South Korea’s current reality, it’s
6:15
also often used to describe the near-royal-status families that run these behemoths. Samsung,
6:20
Hyundai, SK, and the other top ten chaebols of the country account for 60% of South Korea’s GDP.
6:27
It’s an economic miracle.
6:29
But one that’s less helpful for the average Korean than might be
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obvious at first glance. Because while they make up almost two thirds of the economy,
6:36
they only provide 7% of the nation’s total employment.
6:40
It translates to a reality where if you’re not in that 7%, you’re economically irrelevant.
6:45
Chaebols in South Korea are so cozy with the state and local authorities
6:49
that they literally construct their own neighborhoods. Lotte Corporation,
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the fifth largest chaebol in the country, completely took over the
6:56
Jamsil-dong neighborhood in Seoul to build “Lotte World”. It’s a massive complex of retail stores,
7:02
residential towers, office space, museums, and entertainment venues.
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They also built Lotte World Tower - at over 1,800 feet (549 meters) the
7:09
tallest skyscraper in South Korea, and the sixth tallest in the world.
7:14
It’s one and a half times taller than the Empire State building.
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Other chaebols have taken over entire metro areas outside of Seoul. Hyundai has essentially
7:21
taken over the city of Ulsan, to the point where the area is nicknamed “Hyundai City”.
7:26
The company has built both the world’s largest shipyard and the world’s largest
7:30
car plant in Ulsan. If you live in the city, it’s possible you live in Hyundai built housing,
7:35
send your child to a Hyundai -run school, and relax at a Hyundai funded cultural
7:39
center. Need to see a doctor? Check into the Hyundai established hospital.
7:43
Everywhere you go, the Hyundai logo is nearby.
7:46
What does this total chaebol domination of the economy mean for South Koreans?
7:50
Good luck on building up a small business to compete with
7:53
them. Or finding a well-paying job with avenues for promotion outside of them.
7:57
People are willing to do a whole lot to get into that chaebol-hired 7% of the
8:02
labor market. Becoming part of the chaebol system is seen as the only way to move up
8:07
in life. So South Koreans enter a harsh, ongoing competition to become part of these select few.
8:12
One that starts from the time they’re infants.
8:15
And never stops.
8:16
Calling South Koreans “helicopter parents” is an understatement. The
8:20
country’s education system is infamously brutal, and parents are obsessed with
8:24
their children's success. Which is why they often enroll their kids in
8:27
“hagwons” - private educational institutions - in addition to their regular schooling.
8:32
4 in 5 school-age children in South Korea get some sort of private extracurricular
8:37
education. In some well-to-do Seoul districts, children as young as 4 years old take entrance
8:42
exams to get into English-language preschools. Other elementary schools offer medical school
8:48
prep tracks. At an age where kids are drawing and just starting to learn multiplication,
8:52
their futures as surgeons are already being set up for them.
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Students end up studying 12 to 16 hours per day. They frequently wake
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up at 6:30 AM to go to school. Come home right after it ends to eat lunch,
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and then are driven to their hagwon at around 4 or 5 PM. Often, students don’t
9:08
return home until 10 PM. Giving them just enough time to get ready for bed and sleep.
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In fact, even though it’s technically
9:15
illegal, some hagwons preparing older students for exams can run until 2 a.m.
9:20
Unsurprisingly, teen mental health in the country is in crisis. Almost
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half - 42.3% - of middle and high school students show signs of stress.
9:29
One in 3 will be burned out before even getting to high school. And 28% will experience depression.
9:35
Stress among students is so out of control that in one Seoul neighborhood known as the epicenter
9:40
of private education, a “screaming zone” was set up. This small soundproof booth was designed to
9:46
let students release their frustrations inside it between school, studying, and hagwon classes.
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The South Korean educational system is so competitive that a national human rights
9:56
commission questioned if such rigorous testing amounts to rights violations.
10:00
But working hard and doing well should still lead to good outcomes for them, right?
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Such a brutal system should, at the very least, be meritocratic.
10:08
Unfortunately, success in the country is largely determined by “Spoon Theory”. It
10:12
first appeared in Korean online communities and forums in 2015. Based on the English phrase,
10:18
“born with a silver spoon”, Spoon Theory states that success for South Koreans can
10:22
largely be determined by the socioeconomic class of the family they’re born into.
10:26
There’s the “diamond” spoon for the top 0.1% of the country. Followed by the gold, silver,
10:31
bronze, and lastly, the mud spoon. This theory has become increasingly popular.
10:36
And increasingly demoralizing. What’s the point of burning yourself out studying
10:40
all day every day when most of your future success has been determined since your birth?
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The worst part about Spoon Theory?
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Young people in South Korea who adhere to it may be right. Because the biggest
10:51
determinant of educational outcomes is parental wealth.
10:55
The elite education system doesn’t come cheap. These upper-tier hagwon institutions can run $650,
11:01
per month, per student, per subject. South Korean families across the socioeconomic spectrum
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give up at least 18% of their income to these schools, to give their children the best shot
11:11
at a good future. It’s one of the highest amounts devoted to child-rearing in the developed world.
11:17
In fact, child-rearing in South Korea costs almost 8 times the annual per
11:21
capita GDP. On average, parents spend the equivalent of 8 years of their full-time
11:26
annual salary just to give their kids a chance in the workforce.
11:30
Despite the astronomical costs, any South Korean parent with the ability to pay does
11:34
so. That’s because participation and success in hagwons can dictate a child’s entire future.
11:41
The psychological burnout of an entire generation thus begins in childhood.
11:45
But it doesn’t end there. Because the prize if you win isn’t wealth.
11:49
It’s a life of insane hours and grueling labor.
11:53
The “Cool Korea” aesthetic of men and women with clear skin and fashionable clothes is - for most
11:58
people - just that: an aesthetic. It’s divorced from the reality they encounter every day.
12:03
Daily life for most Koreans is miserable.
12:06
The Hallyu mirage was intentionally created by the state to both obscure this reality, and give the
12:11
country and outsize influence on the world stage. In the 2010s and 2020s, TV shows, pop groups,
12:17
and Korean aesthetics exploded in popularity around the world. From “Squid Game” to “BTS” to
12:23
skincare routines, South Korean culture, products, and art have never been so popular as it is today.
12:29
This phenomenon wasn’t random.
12:31
It was a deliberate industrial policy launched by the state. In 2001, President Kim Dae-jung
12:37
created the “Hallyu Industry Support Development Plan”. The country spends about 1.5% of its budget
12:42
every year on cultural issues and pours tens of millions into promoting its media.
12:48
All a way to ensure that South Korea would gain so much influence
12:51
and goodwill that it would never again be forced to its knees like it was in 1997.
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And the export of this “cultural technology” has worked.
12:59
For the most part.
13:00
In 2023, South Korea got $14 billion for all Hallyu-related exports, from cultural content to
13:07
tourism. Better yet, the country became recognized and adored the world over. 77% of Americans view
13:13
the country favorably, and just under 2% said they were unfamiliar with it. A huge drop from 2001.
13:20
But this newfound international status and acclaim is doing absolutely nothing
13:24
for the average citizen, whose life is a far cry from the glittery K-pop dream.
13:29
South Koreans worked an average of nearly 1,900 hours in 2022. The OECD average was
13:34
just 1,750 hours per year. That adds up to almost a month of additional work
13:39
for the average Korean than the rest of the world, 3.5 weeks to be exact.
13:44
That extra work doesn’t mean a better standard of living.
13:47
The Price-to-Income Ratio (PiR) for an apartment in Seoul reached
13:51
26.0 in 2024. Which means that a worker making the median South Korean salary
13:56
has to save 100% of their income for 26 years just to buy a home.
14:02
26 years of saving every Won they make in order to buy a house is an impossible task. People
14:08
need to buy food, clothes, and other essentials. Most of which are also ridiculously expensive.
14:14
South Korean people are burning out not to move up the corporate ladder;
14:17
but simply to ensure their survival. And when survival requires all your time and
14:22
money, biological imperatives like family become impossible luxuries.
14:26
A sacrifice that some South Koreans feel much more than others.
14:30
Though South Korea appears modern and progressive on the outside,
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it’s actually one of the worst places in the developed world to be a woman.
14:36
South Korean women ranked dead last among OECD nations for years in terms of gender
14:42
inequality in the workplace. As of 2024, they moved up one slot, just over Turkey.
14:48
For many women, motherhood signals the end of any potential career progress,
14:52
if not the end of their working life altogether. That may be why South Korea
14:56
has low ratios of board seats and managerial jobs alongside one of the widest gender gaps
15:02
in terms of median pay: 29%. Not to mention, a birth rate in freefall.
15:07
South Korea also comes in dead last in most other gender equality markers. South
15:12
Korean women get paid less than 70 cents for every dollar a man
15:15
makes. A disparity that’s twice as large as the OECD average.
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That’s been the case for 27 years straight.
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As you might imagine, this doesn’t give South Korean women much hope
15:25
that their situation will change soon. How can a woman who is barely making
15:29
ends meet to survive in an underpaid job afford the motherhood penalty?
15:34
She can’t.
15:35
That, along with a deeply entrenched history of sexism,
15:38
has led to one of the most well-known South Korean female-led movements: the 4B movement.
15:44
It’s a lifestyle movement that emerged in 2015, and rejects 4
15:48
traditional expectations for straight women: marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex with men.
15:53
It emerged alongside the “Escape the Corset” movement.
15:57
While South Korea has become known for its beauty regimens,
15:59
the popularity of these treatments hides the reason they’ve been perfected so much in the
16:03
first place. Beauty standards in the country, particularly for women, are unfathomably harsh.
16:09
One in three South Korean women has had plastic surgery by the age of 29.
16:14
Women grew tired of it all. The low pay, the high level of sexism,
16:17
the unrealistic beauty standards and pressure. The 4B movement was not
16:21
only an expression of that exhaustion. But what some women viewed as the only possible
16:26
way out of many patriarchal pressures: the refusal to engage with men at all.
16:31
This has led to a huge anti-feminist backlash.
16:34
Particularly among young men.
16:36
This was most evident in the 2024 election. Among all age groups, the
16:40
gender gap in political ideology was by far the most pronounced in the 18-29 year old demographic.
16:46
It makes dating a political minefield, which only makes matters worse. One
16:51
Carnegie study showed that unmarried men are much more likely to show resentment
16:55
towards women. They are also likely to hold hostile attitudes towards women,
16:59
and be less supportive of legislation in favor of gender equality. This creates a
17:04
vicious cycle in which more single men and women lead to even more single men and women.
17:09
Men and women in South Korea aren’t just drifting apart;.
17:12
They’re actively turning on each other.
17:14
As young people prioritize basic survival over relationships,
17:17
it has led to the total breakdown of the social fabric and the family unit.
17:21
What’s left when human connection is taken out of the equation?
17:25
People turn inwards, in obsessive, and often self-destructive ways.
17:29
It’s no wonder that in a country that prioritized corporate GDP growth over human sustainability,
17:34
Koreans are running themselves ragged in an endless quest for self-improvement. Citizens
17:39
are treated like industrial fuel, thrown into and chewed up by the system to keep
17:43
the economy chugging along. In the same way schoolkids burnout trying to be the best,
17:48
South Korean Gen-Z adults are burning out to become their own “best version”.
17:52
That’s the motivation behind the “Godsaeng” trend. This movement - focused on living a perfect,
17:57
fully productive life - has swept across South Korean social media and youth circles.
18:02
It may seem like a positive thing on the surface. After all, what’s wrong with trying to be your
18:06
best self? But like most things in the way the country runs, it has a dark underbelly.
18:12
“Godsaeng” has become a coping mechanism for a hopeless future.
18:15
An average Godsaeng schedule involves early wake-ups. Followers start their
18:19
morning with exercise, work most of the day, then come home to study finance and
18:24
investment techniques to increase their wealth. If they have more free time, perhaps they can
18:29
even work towards an extra certificate to become more competitive in the job market.
18:33
The problem?
18:34
The “Godsaeng” movement still completely revolves around
18:37
being busy. It’s not an antidote to burnout.
18:40
It’s another cause of it.
18:41
Experts are concerned that the obsession with being busy is creating high levels
18:45
of sleep deprivation, burnout, anxiety, and ultimately loneliness. After all,
18:50
nowhere in most Godsaeng “life templates” is socialization or leisure time prioritized.
18:56
It would be a problem anywhere, but it’s especially problematic in South Korea.
19:00
In 2023, the country reported almost 3,700 “lonely deaths”. That’s around
19:06
10 people a day dying completely alone and unnoticed by anyone.
19:10
The phenomenon of death by loneliness is so common it has its own name in Korean:
19:16
“godoksa”. The biggest leap in deaths by loneliness was among men in their 20s and 30s.
19:21
All the self-optimization in the world can’t change an irreversible fact: most young people
19:26
in South Korea have little hope for a better future, and no real way in which to attain it.
19:31
The ultimate cost of the system that has been created is a busy, lonely,
19:35
burnout-riddled life…followed by a quiet, isolated death.
19:38
Deaths by loneliness, a plummeting birth rate,
19:41
the near complete wipe-out of the Korean ethnicity within a couple of generations.
19:45
The problems have gotten so bad that the government has finally decided to step in.
19:49
Unfortunately, the way they’re doing so doesn’t seem to be helping.
19:53
Since the mid-2000s, the South Korean government has spent almost $280 billion in subsidies to fix
19:59
the birth rate. The money has gone towards lowering and subsidizing childcare costs,
20:03
fertility treatments, and even handing out direct cash bonuses to couples that have babies.
20:08
But this money only addresses the symptoms of
20:10
the South Korean demographic crisis; not the root cause.
20:14
The spending has failed because it targets superficial fixes while
20:17
ignoring the root of the problem: the hyper-competitive corporate structure
20:21
that makes parenting a career death sentence. For almost 3 decades, the South Korean system
20:26
has been built on extracting value, not sustaining society and life.
20:30
South Korea may be an extreme case, but it’s not isolated.
20:33
The same pattern is being replicated in rich countries around the world.
20:37
The country’s case is a warning: modern corporate culture, workplace demands,
20:41
and overwork are going to upend the happiness and cohesion of societies as we know them.
20:46
South Korea is simply the first domino to fall in the modern corporate world.
20:50
Who will be next? This isn’t just South
20:53
Korea. Gen Z is feeling it more than any generation, and the effects are serious.
20:58
Watch “Gen Z Health Crisis No One Expected” to see what the future holds, or click this video.
