HOW SATISFIED ARE KOREANS WITH THEIR LIVES?

Career has been found to rank near the bottom with respect to life satisfaction among OECD member countries. Based on data collected from 2019 to 2021. So what's behind this depressing finding? What can be done to address it and what are the efforts? elsewhere to ensure satisfaction with life, welcome to problems and initiates. Koreans are less

satisfied

with

their

lives

than

their

global counterparts and today we delve into this sad phenomenon to learn more about this. I have Professor Shining Young from Korea University here in the studio. Professor Shin, it's a It's a pleasure to have you back, thank you for having me.

I have also met with us, so welcome back, it will always be a pleasure, so let's start with a few words regarding the OECD survey on life satisfaction and its findings regarding South Korea. Therefore, the life satisfaction of the Korean people is among the lowest in the statistics of OECD Nations. Korea recently released a report titled Quality of Life Indicators 2022 which revealed that in terms of life satisfaction, South Korea ranked 36th out of 38 OECD countries and that was based on data between 2019 and 2021. So , on a scale of 1 to 10, South Korea scored 5.9 and that is well below the OECD average at 6.7, only Colombia and Turkey scored lower than Korea at 5.8 and 4.7 respectively when analyzing the results of just 2021, the score has risen slightly to 6.3 from 6.0 in 2020, but what is notable is that the level of satisfaction was much lower among people in the group low-income earners with 5.5 and low-income earners, that is, people with less than 1 million income or that is about 760 US dollars now, overall, the country's gross national income per capita has been improving, although Household debt rose along with it and South Korea is a much richer country than in the past, which is why Korea is part of the advanced OECD.

United Nations, but life satisfaction does not seem to be at the level of advanced countries and another sad factor that the report shows is that the suicide rate in Korea has increased significantly, but significantly it is among the highest suicide rates among the OECD. in fact, the highest even among OECD countries in 2021: 26 people per 100,000 committed suicide. The proportion of older people living alone also increased in 2022 to almost 21 percent. First of all, I look at the profession, in a nutshell, what do you think affects the quality of life? and the general sense of happiness, defining happiness is a complex task, for example, when we hear the question what makes you happy, we can think of millions of different things, happiness is a subjective indicator and that positive emotional state varies between individuals and even between societies, so happiness is much more of a social product than we assume happens, this is generally considered best individual, however the makers that influence our happiness are often more determined by social conditions, a High quality of life is affected by a variety of social and economic factors, access to basic services.

Resources such as health education and safe living conditions are important because they contribute to individual physical well-being, and social support and a sense of belonging play an important role in people's emotional well-being and foster meaningful connections and a sense of belonging. community that That said, there is an interesting pattern I noticed in the report as soon as it was reported. Unfortunately, we are not so happy compared to people living in other oceanic countries; However, what is more surprising is that because of how Korean happiness is constructed, the uniqueness of Korean happiness is found. Due to the greater discrepancy between the different components of happiness and overall quality of life, there are multiple subcategories to measure happiness GDP per capita social support life expectancy freedom to make life decisions, etc. much of Korean happiness is associated with GDP to which reports draw our attention to the challenges Korea faces in promoting greater well-being, for example, life balance ranks 89th out of 146 countries and Korea also features among the top 10 countries.

Most people think that people should take care of themselves. We see that there is little agreement. about social supports, I see, and secondly, Professor Shin, which I saw, mentioned that Korea has the highest suicide rate among OECD member countries and in recent years there has been an alarming increase in the numbers of Suicide among older people, that is, here in the country. Can you explain this sad phenomenon? The suicide rate has long been an important topic in sociology. People may find it counterintuitive because we tend to view suicide as a private matter or an individual problem, but then why do sociologists care so much about their suicide rate?

Because the suicide rate is a social product, especially according to Emmett Durkheim, one of the most influential sociologists, he argued that economic suicide increases when there is a sudden social change when social conditions, whether economic or technological, change dramatically, we do not develop the necessary culture. To adapt to change, people may find themselves in an economic situation where they do not know what things are correct and how to behave appropriately, given that older generations tend to be less flexible in adopting culture and might be more vulnerable in a rapidly changing society, then we can return to the question of why we see an extremely high suicide rate among older people.

Two distinctive features should be considered first: Korean elderly people and societies are growing very fast and are also very weak. In terms of their social connections, in 2025 we expect 20 per cent of our population to be over 65 years old. It has doubled in the last 10 years and we expect this number to reduce by approximately 40 percent in 20 years, but many of them are not well connected. As Korean society has become more urbanized and industrialized, traditional social structures, such as the extended family, have collapsed very quickly. The

lives

of many older Koreans feel disconnected and isolated. This sense of social isolation can be a major risk factor for depression and suicide, in addition to economic insecurity.

It can also be a serious problem for many other Koreans deprived of financial and emotional support from family and many older Koreans struggle to find employment and a rapidly changing economy. On top of that, mental health problem is often stigmatized in society. Korean and many people feel embarrassed or ashamed to seek help for depression or other mental health problems, this can make it difficult for people to get the type of help they need and this can also contribute to feelings of hopelessness and despair, unfortunately I I also refer to Regarding the findings on quality of life, I heard that there was a tangible difference between the subjective evaluation and the objective evaluation, could you explain to us that for us there are different studies that do these evaluations differently, so let's first take a look a look at one? that is based on an objective assessment of the quality of life, the human development index of the United Nations development programme, which provides a measure of the three key dimensions of a country's human development, namely, a long life and healthy, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living, so this ranked South Korea is ranked 19th out of 188 countries and then, when it comes to one that is based on subjective indicators, the world happiness report index of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network rants against Korea at 59th out of 147 countries and then the OECD, as I mentioned earlier, ranked Korea. 36 out of 38 and the OECD is based on a combination of objective and subjective indicators, so according to the OECD, a better life index among 11 areas, Korea ranked second in civic engagement, which would be social participation, seventh in housing and eleventh in education, which is quite positive. performance there, but Korea ranked 37th in health, 38th in community, which would be the quality of the support network, and 38th in environment, so we can conclude from these results that the abundance of life has been growing in recent years in Korea, while the subjective quality of life has increased.

Going down, I see, and Professor Shin has also reportedly found that higher incomes do not necessarily correlate with higher levels of happiness. Do you think happiness then is a matter of perspective? My answer should be yes with a little bit of no because obviously the basic need in our life must be

satisfied

, but economic security is not a necessary but not sufficient condition, which means that there are other important factors that contribute to our sense of well-being. . It is true that many countries that generally have lower incomes report a higher level of happiness, this is partly because the definition of happiness inevitably varies from one society to another and the relationship between income and happiness is not as simple as we might think. and that cultural and social factors may be critical, if not more important, to why income and happiness are not strongly correlated.

One explanation for this paradox is the role of social comparison where people's happiness is influenced by their relative income or requests in society rather than just their absolute values. From what I see, I think there are studies that show that happiness is a matter of correct perspective, so let me introduce you to one of those studies done by the Pew Research Center, which is a US think tank, it was titled What makes life meaningful and the study focused on 17 advanced countries, including South Korea, and involved about 19,000 adults. So I try to add to what people value in life, what gives them satisfaction and also to what extent these factors that satisfy people in their lives are fundamental in different cultures and unique to particular societies.

The predominant response shared among most countries was: they value family more 14 of 17 countries cited family as what gives the most meaning to their lives, occupation and career and material well-being were named as the second and third sources of value in life, followed by friends, community and health. only three countries did not prioritize their families, including Spain, Korea and Taiwan. For Korea, they ranked family as the third category. Now Spain ranked health as the top priority and Taiwan ranked society as the top priority. So what do you think the Koreans' main response was? I think that I.

What I just saw on the list was material well-being, exactly it was material well-being and then it was followed by health and family here in Korea and according to the study, a large number of people highlighted how important it is to have one's own La Meeting basic financial need or even enjoying some level of luxury to live a full life and material well-being was mentioned by respondents in nine countries, but only in South Korea did it appear as the main source of meaning, Netherlands, Belgium, Japan and Spain. material well-being comes second. Now I mentioned that many countries valued work;

In fact, in nine countries it was the second most-responded source of meaning, but interestingly only six percent of Koreans said their jobs or work gave them value in life. What is also worth mentioning is that this survey was based on an open question, so it also highlighted that some audiences tended to give fewer topics to what makes their life meaningful and that trend was especially seen in countries like Korea and Japan, so many in these countries just named an answer for what makes them happy and most of them said material well-being. Now I see, based on what Saw said in Professor Shin, do you think money would make Korea happier?

I mean what in simple terms it can be. made to ensure more happiness for the people here. Oh, this is not a time for questions, obviously, but the quick answer can be found in those who are not happy, so one of the investigations I am conducting with the doctors of the psychiatry department of the Carrera University Hospital. I have the data of the 55 patients with depression and more. I found a dominant reason for your definition of depression, any gas, it's really uh, 38 out of 55 patients responded their social relationships, so like you said, this connection to society, so yeah and it's also not about disconnection. itself, but rather from having stressful relationships, so theThe source of the relationship could be a mother and mother's daughter's ex-boyfriend, mother-in-law and husband, etc., etc., so maintaining the relationship is a difficult task in any society, but in Korea the difficulties are seen Compounded by the strength of social ties and the closely binding nature of such a relationship, in fact, the intensity of social relationship in Korea is relatively strong, so some countries like the life satisfaction they had found in relationships. social, but while the Korean people responded about material security and this may not be because we don't care, but we don't have a satisfactory relationship experience in Korea and we know that relationships are important in our life, but maintaining a good relationship is not easy, but if you ask, what?

We can do to be happier and then I would say that if you want to be happy in 10 years or even in 10 days, I think we should invest in people and relationships. I see investing in people and relationships, and before I do, I'm going to ask you what you can share with us about the efforts of governments elsewhere to ensure public satisfaction. Well let's start with New Zealand which is one of the happiest countries in the world and which has a wellbeing budget introduced in 2019 is based on the idea that material wealth alone is not a sufficient measure of quality of life .

Although New Zealand has been a country with good results in studies related to happiness compared to other countries, it has faced long-term challenges such as domestic violence, child poverty and housing that the welfare budget attempts to address and therefore , more investmentEducation and security have been given to the health system, but less priority to GDP growth, for example, and in the United Kingdom there is now a Ministry of Loneliness that has existed since 2018. It is based on the notion that emotions such as loneliness, depression, anger, etc. must be managed by the community and the country, and the country also has to be responsible for loneliness and the consequences that come from loneliness on the part of individuals, such as suicide, the ministry cites studies that suggest that loneliness is equally harmful to health life expectancy. and mental well-being as harmful as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day, the ministry compares 21st century loneliness to an epidemic and that it has a profound effect on people of all ages and from all walks of life, speaking of epidemic in 2021, the minister of loneliness in particular warned that the problem of loneliness has become critical to address due to the covid-19 pandemic, so what is being done is that the government intervenes in the problem of loneliness by establishing standards to measure and classify loneliness, strengthening social networks, etc. and projects simply include, for example, planning gatherings of people in a community.

Meanwhile, Japan followed suit in 2021 with the appointment of its first loneliness minister to reduce widespread loneliness, social isolation and rising suicide rates, which also appear to have increased amid the pandemic. So what seems to be the common idea of ​​these efforts is that more money and attention needs to be devoted to the well-being and happiness of members of society, even if that means taking away some partial expenses for other things, and this can also be The reason why it might be a more challenging task for Korea to fight issues related to people's well-being at the government level now is that Korea is also continually trying to reduce suicide numbers through its Suicide Prevention law and also from opposition legislators. in 2020 launched a policy research group at a time to make happiness a key strategy of the right national policies and talking about national policies, Professor Shin, what should take priority to design a happiness policy that is suitable for South Korea, do you really believe the report? shows the rapidly changing dynamics in the Korean value system and Among Us, the country.

We're not happy to have talked about this and it's also disappointing that the status is low, but what really helps us notice is the discrepancy between these components that we talked about. Korea has achieved notable economic progress, but still faces significant social and economic disparities that can undermine people's overall well-being and happiness. Addressing issues such as property inequality and discrimination can create a more just and equitable society that can improve the sense of belonging and social support and other important efforts also mentioned strengthening social relationship and community belonging. The race has a strong sense of collectivism and social cohesion which can be a source of great social support and well-being, however, rapid social changes, such as urbanization, industrialization, can erode.

Social ties and community belongings that promote social capital, such as trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement, can foster a sense of community and social connection that can positively contribute to people's happiness. Beyond the borders by staying in Asia, I understand that Taiwan has been found to be the happiest country here in Asia, according to a related UN report, which seems to be driving Taiwan's public satisfaction. Taiwan is the happiest nation in Asia, excluding the Middle East, according to the UN World Happiness Report released in March last year, so Taiwan's happiness index was 6,512, ranking 26th out of 146 countries. , which was significantly higher than South Korea at 49, Japan at 59 and China at 72.

Taiwan's performance last year was unprecedented because since 2018 it has maintained that trend for the last four years, but not It's like that. It has always been this way in 2013, in fact, Korea and Taiwan scored 6.2; However, from then on Korea's happiness decreased and Taiwan's increased, so what reportedly contributed to that? Their policy change in 2016 and also the policy changes on the minimum wage and other work related issues. policies, as well as growing trust in the government and economic growth despite the covid-19 pandemic, so these have been named as the factors despite Taiwan having geopolitical difficulties, such as threats from China, right ?

And finally, Professor Shin speaking at the Sociology school. How would you define happiness? A brief answer. Ah, not as a sociologist but as a person. I am happy when I feel that I am a decent human being. I know, of course. I don't think there is any good recipe to achieve this. that, but we are all in the process of learning how to become better people and be satisfied with ourselves, but only one thing I know for sure as a sociologist, I can't do this alone, we can't be happy in isolation, so I think we really should worry about social connections and belongings that are together, right, those are some very important words, right there, very good, profession as always, thank you very much for your time and your thoughts for having me back, so thank you very much for your interior today, thank you very much.

On that note we say goodbye, we return at the same time on Thursday with a look at the latest on the pandemic front as Korea ushers in its new academic year, thanks for now.