Society & Social Trends

Longer safety notices and a check before repeat messages South Korea is preparing to increase the length of safety advisory messages from 90 to a maximum of 157 characters and …

Fairness perceptions skew toward the young and economically vulnerable People in their 20s and 30s, lower-income earners and those living outside the greater Seoul area are relatively more likely to …

18.4% and 18.3%: the generational balance at large corporations flips For the first time, employees aged 50 and over make up a larger share of the workforce at major Korean …

Student Debt That Outlasts Graduation In South Korea, student loans were long treated as a predictable debt: you finish university, land an entry-level job, and start paying it down. Today, …

A Holiday Split Between Parents’ Homes and Personal Sanctuaries A typical Chuseok itinerary in 2026 might look like this: visit your parents on the first day for a shared meal, …

Suicide deaths fall to 14,144, marking the first decline in three years Both the number of suicides and the suicide rate in South Korea saw a welcome decline in 2025. …

Plans for Charye drop from 40.4% to 27.3% in just one year Only 27.3% of South Korean households plan to observe charye (ancestral rites) during Chuseok in 2026. This is …

Earning more than they spend from 28, back in deficit at 61 On average, South Koreans start earning more from work than they spend at age 28 and stay in …

44.1% and 56.2%: two numbers, one month In August 2026, South Korea’s official youth employment rate, based on the standard 15-to-29 age bracket, stood at 44.1%. That’s down a full …

Burnout hits 52.7% of unemployed youth More than half of the young people looking for work in South Korea have experienced burnout. According to an analysis of the Office for …