Economic stress affecting students and workers
Such rapid development usually comes at a cost. South Korea has strongly emphasized education, having successfully raised the country’s adult population with a completed tertiary education from around 18 percent in 1995 to nearly 52 percent in 2021. However, this has increased pressure on students to get good grades and spend hours learning. In 2022, over 78 percent of students attended private educational institutions in addition to their normal school education, spending an average of 7.2 hours per week on private lessons. That same year, over 14 percent of middle and high school students reported having had suicidal thoughts.The domestic workforce is also under pressure. South Korea has one of the highest average annual working hours in the OECD, amounting to 1,915 hours per worker in 2021, well above the average of 1,716 hours. This has been a crucial factor in South Korea having one of the lowest fertility rates worldwide, a common struggle with demographic consequences in developed countries. Additionally, many workers reported high levels of stress in a 2022 survey, with nearly 71 percent of employees in their forties stating that they had been stressed at work recently.
