A collectivist expectation, a recession comparison, and a first-and-second ranking

Korea, the notes say, still has a collectivist culture, and a social habit of treating marriage as a thoroughly natural step. People who do not know the present generation well, the writer adds, press the young to marry in a hurry; those who do know it would not say that so easily. The present young generation is described as one living through hardship and economic difficulty.

The country is compared to Japan in an earlier recession. Youth unemployment is said to be rising year after year, and more young people prepare for the civil-service exam, while the share in poverty among the young and the old is also said to be climbing. Those claims are left undated, and are not recast as 2026 official totals. The writer says that, for money, young people give up marriage first and childbirth second. That ranking, too, stays the writer’s claim, not a later official order.

A patriarchal view among men is still named as a pressure, even as more women enter paid work and dual-income households increase: housework and childcare continue to be pressed on women. From a woman’s side, the notes say, earning is already hard; if work is not shared and housework and childcare are still demanded, there is little reason to marry. Firms that stretch overtime, they add, help to decide against having a child.

A house, at least 200 million won, and evenings that run to ten or midnight

When people think about marrying, the first worry, whether for a man or a woman, is said to be the house. It is already hard to secure a home of one’s own; once a loan is taken to buy one, still larger economic burdens settle in place. If a couple marry and have a child, the cost of raising that child is, in this telling, too heavy for the young to bear on their own.

Formula, diapers, and daycare or kindergarten, taken together, are said to push the money needed to raise one child past at least 200 million won. That figure is the writer’s claim, with no year attached, and is not recast as a later official total. It is given as a reason why, even after marrying, more newlyweds aim not to have a child.

Overtime in Korean firms, the notes say, has become an ordinary thing. Offices that let people leave at the basic hour of six in the evening are extremely rare; most office workers stay until ten, or until midnight. Death from overwork is treated as something to be expected, a reality the writer finds painful. Leaving after ten, they ask, when is there time to have a child and raise one? Even if one parent stays home, raising a child on a single income is hard; if both work late, a child left alone is left in a poor setting. Men who come home exhausted from overtime, they add, find it hard to take part in care, and a father who could go home in time would ease the mother’s burden.

Suggestions left as suggestions, not as enacted law

Because these burdens are described as the product of a social structure, not only of private choice, the writer argues that the government should step in to support the marriages of the young. Newlyweds who cannot buy a home because prices are too high should, in this telling, be offered loans at a much lower interest rate, or be first in line to rent or be allotted a house. Using vacant housing, selling or lending first to newlyweds, and only later trying to bring property prices down, are named as a sequence of ideas. Those are suggestions, not later enacted programs.

Labour relations, the writer says, are serious in any country and still more so here. Courts, in this telling, should strengthen a rule so that firms cannot keep people at work past six, and corporate abuse should meet stricter legal penalties. The point is not a general fertility-policy paper; low fertility and a smaller working-age population are mentioned as things these burdens can lead to, but the assigned frame remains the economic value of marriage, the cost of a house, and overtime that keeps people from going home.

People who understand the present generation, the notes close, would not press for a hasty marriage. The hope they record is that fewer young people will give up marrying because of the economic burden that follows it, if policies that lighten that burden are tried. Those hopes stay the writer’s. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. Notes on the economic value of marriage, on securing a home, on overtime, and on the cost of raising a child.
2. The writer’s undated ranking — marriage first, childbirth second — and a claim of at least 200 million won to raise one child, left as claims, not as later official totals.
3. A comparison with Japan’s earlier recession; rare six-o’clock leaving; and policy suggestions on loans, housing, a six-o’clock rule, and penalties, left as suggestions, not as enacted law.

Last updated: 14 November 2026