Independence at twenty, and a tight room in Seoul

In much of Europe, the notes write, most children leave their parents’ house at twenty. That independence is psychological and economic, and it includes a place of one’s own. In a global downturn the picture may look a little different today, they add, but the contrast still matters. The notes want to look at university students who have taken a room in Seoul, through interviews, and to ask what housing troubles they face, and what might be done. One student voice, as they record it, would rather wait to live apart until after finding work, when the rent — monthly or a lump-sum lease — can be paid from one’s own money, even if the rate goes up a little.

The same tight arithmetic, they write, runs from private tutoring in middle and high school, through university fees and living costs, and on to the choice of graduate school. It is a bleak pattern, in their view, and it settles on the room a student can actually afford.

A 14-square-meter floor, and a 2011 survey

In May 2011, the notes write, a revision of the Housing Act set the minimum size of a home at 14 square meters. A 2011 survey by the YMCA, as they cite it, found that 47 percent of students living independently — nearly half — were in rooms smaller than that floor. Among them, 22 percent lived in less than 6.6 square meters, under two pyeong, a space the notes liken to a flophouse cubicle. Those official and survey figures stay in 2011, not as a later official total.

When a one-room flat cannot be found, some students take a goshiwon. There is usually no deposit, and the monthly rent is relatively low, but the notes write that noise and the lack of a private life make it hard to call the space a room at all. Kitchens, showers, and toilets are often shared, and some rooms have not even a palm-sized window. Students accept such places, they say, because they have little choice.

Dormitories under 10 percent, and who is left out

Underneath that choice, they write, is a shortage of university dormitories. To house students effectively, a dormitory should be able to take in about 25 percent of all enrolled students; most universities in Seoul, they say, show a rate under 10 percent. Because places are so few, the university has to select who gets in, and that selection, they write, has problems of its own. Residents of the capital area are often excluded altogether. Even so, they add, a commute from a place such as Cheonan — outside Seoul, but with relatively good transit — can still be hard, depending on the line and the hour, and treating all capital-area addresses the same way leaves some students with no good option.

The notes want a clearer look at the structure of the housing market itself, and at remedies for a youth-housing problem that, in their telling, does not end with graduation. The 2011 floor, the YMCA shares, and the dormitory rates are left in that year. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes’ account of student housing in Seoul, including the May 2011 Housing Act floor and a 2011 YMCA survey

Last updated: 14 November 2026