Competition
To live in South Korea is to be a competitor: one must fight intensely to win one’s university place, job, marriage partner, and many other things besides. The pressure to compete against others begins in early childhood and does not let up even following retirement. It can be no coincidence that one of the most popular Korean expressions—an equivalent of “You can do it!”—is the English loanword “fighting!”
Confucianism puts a premium on educational success and the provision of a stable life for one’s family. This emphasis encourages people to strive for at least a baseline level of achievement and respectability. However, the baseline never seems enough in South Korea. So why are the people of this country so driven—for better or worse—to be the best they can be? And why have South Korean leaders from General Park onwards been so keen to make their country into number one?
Between Nations: Korea, Number One
From the 1950s onwards, South Korea offered perfect conditions for the development of a mindset that encouraged competition with other nations. South Korea emerged from the Korean War with a third of its population homeless, due to the massive destruction of housing that occurred during that conflict. Average GDP was less than US$100 per capita. The country was unable to feed itself, as there was no money to import food, and only 21 percent of South Korean land was fit to grow crops on. To make matters worse, the country had virtually no natural resources. To this day, only the tiniest fraction of South Korea’s energy needs is met from domestic fuel sources.
Crushing poverty—and the lack of resource wealth to remedy it—led to a crucial realization. To dig themselves out of their terrible situation, South Koreans needed to focus on developing human skills and then put them to unceasing use. As Kim Dong-jin, advisor to President Park Chung-hee, recalls, “All we had was the hard work and brain power of our people.” South Korea’s Confucian legacy dictated that the starting point was the education of the populace: the nation’s young had to be educated as well as possible, and after they became adults, they had to work as hard as possible.
In 1945, only 5 percent of South Koreans had received secondary or higher education. By 1960, the Syngman Rhee government—though a violent, corrupt dictatorship—had increased primary school enrollment eight times and secondary school enrollment ten times. Up to 19 percent of the government’s budget was spent on education. From then until the 1980s, South Koreans enjoyed greater access to education than did the people of any other country of a similar GDP level, according to Michael J. Seth of James Madison University, in his book Educational Fever.
After General Park took power in 1961, the people were exhorted to work around the clock in order to improve South Korea and help it do better than others—particularly Japan, the former colonizer. Koreans who remember this period can recall posters encouraging them to “Beat Japan” (through industrialization) and spurring them on to break ever-increasing national export targets. The people were transformed into “industrial soldiers” who could help overcome the nation’s poverty, tragic history, and the North Korean threat through long days at shipyards, factories, and industrial plants. Six-day workweeks were the norm; Saturday was just another weekday.
From a young age, children were told that they would become such industrial soldiers: A professor of economics who was in grade school then speaks of a childhood in which teachers “drilled it into our heads that we were on a historic mission to revive the nation.” In school, Korean children were to be diligent students, and then when they grew up and joined the workforce, they were to participate in the quest for economic power, by working for the companies that were pushing relentlessly to make South Korea into a top export nation.
The Park government focused on numerical targets, and inculcated the need to make Korea’s numbers better than those of other countries. General Park had a personal obsession with statistics, and he forced his underlings to have similar awareness of export volume and inflation data, for instance. This orientation dies hard: even today, journalists, politicians, and business leaders make constant reference to the position of South Korea in world GDP ranking tables and the industries in which Korean firms hold “world number-one” status. When Lee Myung-bak ran in the December 2007 presidential election, he made the so-called “747 Pledge”: 7 percent economic growth, US$40,000 GDP per capita, and the seventh largest economy in the world. Though his pledge was frankly impossible, it was electorally very successful. And in 2011, when South Korea had its first year of trade with other countries in excess of US$1 trillion, large firms responded by draping huge celebratory banners across the front of their headquarters, and newspaper editorials eulogized the achievement.
No doubt a deep sense of national insecurity is also at play in South Korea’s headlong pursuit of economic power. As a small country born in poverty, divided from the more industrialized North, and surrounded by more powerful and aggressive states, South Korea’s leaders have always felt the need to make their country as economically competitive as possible, to become a top trading partner for the larger powers that affect Korea’s destiny—such as the United States and, more recently, China. Countries that conduct significant trade with each other have an obvious incentive to support each other politically, or at least, avoid conflict. Trade not only made South Korea a wealthy country, but also helped secure its continued existence.
This idea doubtless increased the drive to make Korea into the top-ranking exporter in any industry deemed important. As Park Chung-hee’s advisor Kim Dong-jin recalls, he was ordered by the new dictator in 1961 to “make Korea into the number one shipbuilding country in the world.” Despite South Korea at the time having virtually no shipbuilding industry at all, General Park was intent on becoming the leader in this strategically valuable industry. He eventually got his wish, posthumously, in the 1980s.
Naturally, South Korea’s unrelenting focus on building world-beating economic prowess had its costs. All other goals considered worthwhile by a nation—a clean environment, a happy populace, freedom of expression, and a rich cultural life, for instance—were sacrificed completely. In evaluating Park Chung-hee, it is important to weigh these sacrifices against the economic miracle he created. Park remains the most popular South Korean leader to this day, but there are also those who feel his project was not worth it. Kim Dong-jin, a close associate of Park, offers the following analogy in defense of his former boss: “When the plane is on the ground, ready to take off, the pilot tells you to fasten your seat belt and sit still. Then, when you’re in the air, you can take off the belt and relax, and a beautiful stewardess brings you something to drink.” The question for South Korea is, now that prosperity has been achieved, will its people finally learn to unbuckle their belt, and sit back with a glass of champagne?
Competition Between Individuals: Education Is Everything
During the days of Syngman Rhee and the early years of General Park, South Korean society was surprisingly level and meritocratic. The Korean War of 1950–1953 had resulted in a state of almost universal poverty in both Koreas. Apart from those closely allied to the corrupt Rhee administration, South Koreans were on an equal footing: almost no one had any money or major social advantage over the rest. Even when owners of large chaebol firms started to become extremely wealthy, the distribution of income in the greater part of society remained fairly even. Between 1957 and 1969, South Korea had a Gini income inequality coefficient—which measures income distribution (essentially, a measure of the gap between rich and poor)—of 26.3 on average. This is comparable to the most egalitarian of European states, like Sweden.
Equality of need went hand in hand with equality of opportunity, particularly with respect to education. Now almost half of new Seoul National University undergraduates come from the rich areas of southern Seoul (Gangnam, Seocho, and Songpa), but as one much older graduate recalls, “Even when I attended—in the early 1980s—two-thirds of the students there were from poor circumstances. It seemed like everyone was from some village I’d never heard of. Being from Seoul, I actually stood out.”
The combination of a level playing field, equal access to education, and the desire of individuals to escape from poverty, together with a natural limit to the best opportunities, heightened competition between individuals. Careers in the civil service, law, medicine, and at the best large companies could pull a young man out of poverty and enable him to provide comfort and stability for his family, but the available positions were few, especially at the outset of a renascent economy. It therefore became essential to outdo others, first at school, then in professional exams, and later in the workplace. And when a young man and his wife had children of their own, they would inculcate their sons and daughters with the same values. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that this mentality of having to outdo peers remains, even though South Korea no longer needs to dig itself out of poverty. The stereotypical Korean mother is not satisfied when her child receives 99 percent on a test, if five other children in the class received 100.
When the first generation of elite graduates started having children, in the 1970s and 1980s, they were eager to pass their hard-won advantages on to their own sons and daughters. Their own experience and the Confucian legacy of civil service exams directed their focus to education, and they used hakwons (private after-school academies), private lessons, and overseas schooling to move their children to the front of the pack. Between school and expensive private tutors, their children might study for fifteen or sixteen hours per day, in order to enter elite universities and gain the best jobs. When their hard work and advantages paid off, a new elite was born, one that may be termed “neo-yangban.”
The original yangban maintained their status through their ability to excel in the test that provided by far the best opportunities for social advancement in Joseon society, the civil service examination. Disadvantaged in study time, money to pay for tuition, and influence among officials, the average citizen was effectively precluded from passing the exam. The current elite similarly maintains their position through their ability to outspend other parents on private tuition, in order that their children gain top marks in the university entrance exams that determine a South Korean’s social status today.
The rest of society did not simply give up following the emergence of the neo-yangban, though. Seeing the new educational upper class beginning to pull away from them, they responded as they had learned—by competing even harder, sacrificing more of their income to send their children to academies and private tutors. Since the 1980s, the nation’s children have been taking extra afternoon and evening classes in English, mathematics, and other subjects and then doing homework both for these supplemental classes and for school. The financial cost of this makes parents less likely to have another child, which in turn contributes to South Korea’s dangerously low birth rate.
Because almost everyone tries so hard to be educationally successful, there are far more graduates with very high test scores than there are good jobs available. This creates a vicious cycle of competition, as people are forced to strive to distinguish themselves even further. Thus, for many, it is no longer enough to go to Seoul National University; Korea is now the third largest supplier of foreign undergraduates to Harvard University. Undergraduates majoring in economics or finance will also simultaneously study for professional accounting qualifications. English test scores are considered of extreme importance too, and for this reason, parents who can afford it will send their children to an English-speaking country for at least some part of their education. All this is so their child will eventually be able to get ahead of others in the race for jobs.
The Widening of Competition
As a country, South Korea has pursued a policy of achieving economic power. The South Korean people have been driven to achieve financial success, but with achievement in education as the starting point. One might have expected that, when the country joined the ranks of the world’s wealthier nations from the 1990s on, the competitive spirit would have declined, but that did not happen. In fact, the competitive urge spread to other areas.
People vie as hard as ever to gain the best jobs and places at the best universities, but now they also feel obliged to look as attractive as possible. Between 1987 and 1996, spending on cosmetics quadrupled. Most of this spending comes from women, but in the 2000s there was also a boom in male cosmetics and male spending on fashion and hair styling in general. In 2010, Korea accounted for 18 percent of male skincare spending worldwide. Korean men now spend more than women on clothes: they spent 7.27 trillion won (around US$7 billion) on clothes in 2010 compared to 7.1 trillion won by women. In 2005, men spent only 4.5 trillion won on clothes; the growth rate in just five years has been more than 60 percent.
South Korea has become notorious for its love of plastic surgery. Usually, when foreign commentators give their opinion on this phenomenon, they express disdain for the apparent superficiality of the women who have nose jobs, breast enlargements, or the painful and dangerous procedure of jaw-line reshaping—but this is to miss the point. A winning combination of physical appearance and background—in career, education, or family—puts a woman ahead of her peers in the search for the best jobs and the most eligible men, who themselves are expected to have money, a superior education, and good looks. Surgically enhanced attractiveness confers other advantages too. When applying for a job in Korea, it is customary to affix a passport-type photograph to the application form. Needless to say, this practice can turn recruitment into something of a beauty contest, particularly where female applicants are concerned.
Plastic surgery is so common now that, as in a sprint race in which half of the field is on steroids, even those who do not want to resort to it feel they have to. A BBC News article reported that: “By conservative estimates, 50 percent of South Korean women in their twenties have had some form of cosmetic surgery.” It is so completely normal and stigma-free that many parents encourage their daughters to have something done—the highly routine double eyelid procedure, for instance.
Advertisements for plastic surgery are everywhere. On Line 3 of the Seoul Metro, posters for it are affixed in every carriage of the train and can be found throughout stations as well, particularly in wealthy, youth-oriented districts such as Sinsa and Apgujong. One ad takes the classic “before and after” approach, but with the twist that the “before” picture shows a small diamond wedding ring and the “after” picture shows a huge one.
The Cost of Competition—Childhood
For the youth of South Korea, competition results in, “a lack of a childhood,” in the words of one recent university entrant. Children enjoy relatively few opportunities to play and socialize with their peers. According to research undertaken by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, Korean children are among the worst in the world at social interaction (thirty-fifth out of thirty-six countries surveyed). In school, children are constantly tested and ranked, rather than taught to work with one another. After the final bell, most are sent to hakwons that teach English, mathematics, music, and so on. When school vacations come, children are not free to relax but instead spend more time in hakwons.
Many also receive private lessons from expert tutors. President Chun Doo-hwan banned private tuition in 1980, because it puts children from poor backgrounds at a disadvantage. The desire of parents to gain any possible advantage for their children though rendered his efforts futile. Private lessons were re-legalized, and by 1997, 70 percent of elementary school students and 50 percent of middle and high school students, were receiving some form of private tuition. Some tutors, particularly Korean graduates of elite American universities, can make well over ten million Korean won per month (almost US $10,000) giving private lessons in subjects like English or mathematics.
Relentless study can be hard on Korean children, as well as unhealthy: 96 percent of high school students do not get enough sleep (they average around six and a half hours per night), with 8.8 percent of them even taking private lessons after 11 p.m. In 2011, a survey of high school students showed 87.9 percent had felt under stress “in the past week,” and 70 percent blamed school for this. Less than half of Japanese, American, and Chinese high school students felt under such stress. Also in 2011, the Institute for Social Development Studies at Yonsei University published a survey showing that Korean teenagers are the unhappiest in the OECD. Suicide is the leading cause of death among Korean youths, and given the country’s educational culture and the pressure to excel, that fact should not be surprising.
The Cost of Competition—Adulthood
Though General Park’s industrial soldiers no longer exist, companies still push their employees to work long hours, and workers are compliant. Every year, South Korean workers put in 2,193 hours of work on average, the highest figure in the OECD. This figure will underestimate the real hours put in though, due to the large amounts of unrecorded, unpaid overtime done by the majority of workers. Foreign businesspeople may remark at the diligence of Korean workers, but they may not recognize the cost: 74.4 percent of South Korean workers feel that their jobs have driven them to depression, accordingly to a survey conducted by, ironically, the economic research arm of Samsung. Labor productivity (i.e. the economic result of each hour worked) is extremely disappointing, with South Korea coming 28th out of the 30 OECD countries: only Mexico and Poland produce less economic value per hour of work. The lack of adequate breaks, holidays, and sleep takes a heavy toll on the amount of work that people can actually produce in a given time.
Yet even finding such a stressful job is difficult. Koreans are overeducated—because of the perceived necessity of possessing academic credentials, over 98 percent of South Koreans between the ages of 25 and 34 have graduated from either a junior college or university, the highest rate in the world —so there is always a large pool of well-qualified applicants for every position. As a result, companies create extra criteria, such as English test scores, by which to judge candidates. The new criteria in turn force people to put more effort and money into studying English or taking additional higher degrees, and the vicious circle continues to turn. Every year 500,000 Koreans graduate from universities, but large firms, the government, and public corporations only create 100,000 openings. Some of the remaining 400,000 end up at small or medium-sized firms, which are typically unstable and cannot compete against the market power of the chaebol. Only 51 percent of graduates overall find “steady work,” according to a report in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper in December 2011.
When people reach their late twenties, the race is on to find a good partner for marriage. Parents pressure their children to get married by their early thirties, out of fear that they will be left behind in the quest for the husband or wife with the best “back” (a loan-word derived from “background,” which refers to job, education, and family circumstances) and the best appearance. When a partner is found, one set of parents may still veto the match: for families that view themselves as having high status, a would-be in-law without the right degree, family background, and work history may prove unacceptable.
All this makes life for South Koreans stressful. Competition is undoubtedly a factor in the country’s high suicide rate. Many parents no doubt wish to raise their children to grow up happier and more balanced. Yet, for mothers in particular, the sight of a single B on a report card can provoke anguish. Groups of Korean mothers—particularly those who do not work, and have time on their hands—compare their children’s educational performance and, even with friends, feel a strong sense of vicarious competition over their son’s or daughter’s grades. Though their own days of competing may be over, they still feel the need to compete through their children.
A More Valuable Philosophy?
When asked the question of what makes success, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon states that “GDP is very important, but we also need to be guided by a more valuable philosophy.” He was referring to the quality of people’s lives—the amount of leisure time they have and their overall happiness. As South Korea is now a wealthy country and people can feel more secure with their own financial status, more Koreans are now starting to come around to the mayor’s way of thinking. They are well aware that the lack of sleep and constant need to do better and better are counterproductive and cause illness, stress, and general unhappiness—and that this works against the efficient output and innovation that are crucial for South Korea’s next stage of economic development.
For now though, actual change seems far away. The Satisfaction with Life Index, a measure developed by Adrian G. White, a social psychologist at Leicester University, that is based on asking people directly, “Are you satisfied with x?,” places South Korea as the 102nd happiest place in the world out of 178 countries surveyed. This unfortunate showing is in stark contrast to the country’s impressive scores on quantitative measures like the UN Human Development Index (12th) and overall GDP ranking on Purchasing Power Parity (also 12th). Competitiveness has driven South Korea to success after success, but with a paradoxically negative impact on its people’s emotional well-being. To top such a list as this, people may well have to give up on trying to be number one.