By Lee Chang-sup

Financial issues have become the fodder for potential clashes among generations in Korea. On a family level, there is a joke. If parents want to get respect from their children, they must support them until their 60th anniversary. Parents must throw a party for them on their 60th birthday.

The baby-boomer generation, born after World War II, faces a dilemma. They must take care of their post-retirement life. Additionally, the duty of looking after their children does not end when the latter get married.

Some of them want to live with their parents as they delay marriage and are unable to find jobs. And even after getting jobs, they want to extend living with their parents due to expensive home prices.

Many married people rely on their parents financially ― they are called the Boomerang or Peter Pan generations. Like the character in the story, Peter Pan, the mischievous boy refuses to grow up. They are also called Twixters, a term that describes young people who are trapped between adolescence and adulthood.

This Western neologism is equivalent to the Japanese “parasite single.” They want to live with their parents as they are not financially independent, having unsteady and low-paying irregular jobs. They marry later than usual and get more college or career training.

Baby-boomer generation parents have become “baby-groomers” as they must look after their unemployed and unmarried adult children.

A family cycle revolves from creating a nest, having babies, sending off married children, the death of spouses and disintegration. In the past when children got married, homes become “empty nests” where only parents lived. Now the empty nest has become a “cluttered nest” or “crowded nest.” The primary cause is the high jobless rate, and the result creates tension between parents and children.

On a company level, two different generations coexist. Sometimes communications are difficult between baby-boomer executives and boomerang employees, who are often called the “Trophy Generation” here.

Parents have fostered their children in such a way as to help them to get trophies and awards. They cheered, not scolded, their children.

Having not been put in a losing environment during their adolescence, these children have grown up with a sense of entitlement, and are now becoming the core workforce.

These “Trophy Kids” have high expectations from the workplace and want to adjust their jobs to their lives rather than gear their lives to work. Baby-boomer workers have regarded admonishment from supervisors as a fact of office life. Even minor scolding from their boss unnerves Trophy-generation workers. Young employees want trophies, not penalties in their workplaces.

Many large firms are currently studying the conflict between two generations in a single workplace.

The Trophy Generation believes they are all stars. As they have grown up following the introduction of the Internet in 1992, they can upload their photos, open blogs and use multiple social media websites such as Cyworld, Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and Twitter.

They are comfortable with smartphones such as iPhones, and iPods, and do not hesitate to skip lunch to buy Starbucks coffee; something even wealthy seniors have second thoughts about. Trophy-generation children are neoliberal on politics and the economy. They complain about their seniors, and have enough reason to be worried over the financial burden when they fill their shoes.

In 2050, four out of every 10 Koreans will be aged 65 or older, as the population declines by 6.4 million to 42 million. The world population will grow from 6.8 billion now to more than 9 billion in 2050. Korea and Japan will be the only Asian countries where population levels will decline.

One young worker will have to take care of two or three retired senior citizens, due to the country having the world’s lowest birthrate. For the past four consecutive years, Korea has ranked lowest in the world with a birthrate of 1.15 per couple, and in 2030 Korea will become the fourth most-aged country. This means that Trophy-generation workers will shoulder the financial burden for the elderly.

In Korea, those born between 1955 and 1963 account for 15 percent of the total population or more than 7 million people. Most of them will stop working by 2018, so the financial burden will be serious.

A report predicted that the National Health Insurance will return to a deficit next year, and by 2024, Korea will be ranked first in per-capita medical insurance expenses.

The news is a shock to most Koreans as the country has drawn international acclaim for its cost-effective and comprehensive medical insurance system. Other social security bills, including employment, pensions, industrial accident compensation and basic livelihood protection will go up.

Incurring debt is a sin the older generation commits as they transfer the burden to the future generation. The government should no longer cite OECD statistics to explain that Korea’s fiscal deficit and its debts are internationally low. Policymakers pay little attention to the fact that Korea is one of the fastest aging societies. The nation must also brace for astronomical spending for a unified Korea.

Lee Chang-sup is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. He can be reached at editorial@koreatimes.co.kr.