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| It is not news that South Korea is facing a population crisis. But how much of this crisis is about logistics and life choices, and how much of it is about perceptions? Unsplash |
By Amanda Price
A curious seven-month-old child, with a headful of disheveled curls, crawls inelegantly across the room. His arms and his legs do not seem to understand that the matter is urgent. Reaching his far-off destination, he stares at a shiny object that, from his expression, may as well be the Holy Grail. Picking up a silver plate, he stares at the image before him. Undoubtedly, it is another child who has come to play.
As he waves his every appendage in unbridled delight, the friend in the plate disappears. Dismayed, the little one looks at the plate again only to find his friend has returned. Waves of ecstasy rise up again, and his diminutive arms and legs flail with the tide. The plate falls to the rug as his little hands curl and uncurl.
The friend is now gone again and so is the joy. The sense of loss, especially that of a friend, begins as a quiver that spreads across his whole face. There is a pause, and then there are tears. The cuddly man who loves him, picks him up and pats his back in a way that soothes his pain.
The tears stop flowing as the smell of the cuddly man who loves him, and the warmth of his gigantic embrace, assure the little one that all will be well. He rests his wee head on his Daddy's shoulder and thinks about everything, nothing and all the things in between.
In a moment his eyelids decide to close. He fights to keep them open, but they ignore his every attempt. Nestling into the warmth that envelops him, his tiny lips curl up at the end. The wee bairn does not fight it. It is the smile of one perfectly content, perfectly safe and perfectly loved.
An increasing number of South Korean men and women are not swayed by images of cuddly infants or the possibilities of happy family moments.
The costly reality behind these moments, in their opinion, outweighs the pleasures that parenthood and marriage are meant to offer.
Families and babies are not as appealing as they once were.
Being "clucky" is going out of style in South Korea and the prospect of happy families is falling into myth.
The reasons for this alarming baby-unfriendly response, prevalent among large sectors of the younger generations, have been dissected and discussed ad infinitum.
Those most often mentioned are the demanding and hyper-competitive job market, massive time deficits, discrimination against married women in the workplace, the economic costs of raising and educating children, a culture where fathers do what they want and mothers do what they are told, a desire among women to be able to achieve their dreams, and the disillusionment of a generation who do not wish to continue the legacy that has been left for them.
In short, babies and families come at too high a cost.
All these factors have combined to create a new social phenomenon call "the Sampo Generation." The Sampo Generation is the term to describe those who have given up hope of long-term relationships, marriage and children.
None of this is new information.
No one doubts that South Korea is facing a national emergency, and no one believes there is an easy or immediate cure.
While this is of course a social concern, the problem itself is very personal.
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| Kang Mi-ok holds her fourth baby as she talks with her husband at a cafe in Cheongyang. Some members of the Sampo Generation would say this mother has given up her independence. Others might wonder how she can afford four children. Mi-ok probably thinks that a price could never be placed on even one of her little ones. Whatever the case, a family of six will become a rare find in South Korea if nothing changes. Yonhap |
It is a problem that cannot be solely fixed with pro-nationalist policies, welfare support, societal reforms or a reduction in the cost of living and education.
This is because the population crisis is not about the population of South Korea, but about individuals and how they perceive themselves, their parents and the society around them.
It is a matter of perspective, and perspective is a hard thing to change.
While no one has been paying attention, a generation has grown up feeling dislocated and disillusioned, unheard beneath the sound of burgeoning infrastructure and a highly industrialized economy.
As they assessed what their saw in their homes and in society, they concluded that these were realities not worth enduring. It was quiet observation, unnoticed discontent and thoughts that had not yet found words.
Ironically, no one paid much attention to this generation until they decided they didn't want to be the center of society.
Now this generation has unwittingly found themselves under the spotlight.
Their concerns did not spring up overnight like mushrooms, nor did they collude together to devise a collective argument against marrying and raising families. Their concerns are rooted in their experiences, not as adults, but as children and teenagers watching their parents' model behaviour that would, they felt, unavoidably become their future.
For this reason, the population crisis can only be understood through retrospection.
When an Asian medical journal conducted a survey of city-dwelling adults between 20 to 35 years of age, 71% of responders felt that their parents lived stressful lives, while only 22% felt their parents were happily married and supported each other in their respective roles.
While the government is concerned about the statistics surrounding the workforce and welfare, perhaps these are the statistics of most importance. What these statistics suggest is that South Korea's problem did not begin with this generation, but with the one before.
Governments, so fixated on creating a thriving prosperous economy with global aspirations, somewhere forgot that thriving economies mean nothing if families are not able to enjoy them.
And though the older generation reaped some of the benefit of that economic success, they were also burdened with the pressures to keep that success growing.
And all the time their children watched.
In many cases, children's perceptions of their parents gave them little cause to hope, or to believe they would overcome what their parents could not.
This does not mean blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of parents, just that many parents through this time altered the way their children perceived parenthood.
Older theories on the influence of parents claim that children who witness their parents' unhappy relationship and their inability to deal with and minimize stress, will be more at risk of repeating those same mistakes.
New research, however, indicates that things are far complex than the idea that children are simply small replicas of their parents, or that parents are the main catalysts for their children's reactions.
Children, according to psychologists, are more often determined to avoid the mistakes of their parents by focusing on avoidance. Research indicates that this focus on avoidance, rather than on developing coping skills, leads children to make their own set of patterned mistakes.
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| As a younger generation has watched their parents struggle with stress, many have decided to bypass those pressures by avoiding marriage and raising families. Avoidance, however, is not the same as learning how to cope with stress, and definitely not the same as learning how to overcome it. Korea Times file |
These mistakes appear to be different from their parents and, consequently, are not perceived as mistakes but as signs of independence. Assuming new ways are inherently better than the old, young adults move confidently forward, unaware of the pitfalls their choices have made.
Old and new theories concur, however, that children raised in safe, supportive and loving homes, where stress is recognized and managed, move into adulthood with a perspective that has not been skewed by negative experiences. To begin families or stay single both remain choices, but choices which have equal potential for contentment and fulfilment.
But for the generation of adults who have watched their parents break their backs to provide for them, or for adults who've witnessed marriages where there was no such thing as unconditional love, their past cannot be undone.
What can be reversed, however, is their perception of themselves as individuals who can only change their futures, by avoiding the stress that their parents faced.
Though the Sampo Generation may see this avoidance as an imperative, it is simply rerouting a pattern of negative behaviour that will emerge as a new set of problems.
These problems are not economic or workforce related, but like those concerns, they will become more and more evident as the Sampo Generation ages, and does so alone.
Choosing not to deal with stress and conflict through avoidance will lead this young generation around in circles. Desperately trying not to take on the stress of their parents, they will create issues that are just as burdensome.
Overcoming and breaking patterns of conflict and stress, psychologists tell us, requires us to confront those patterns and realize they are not inevitabilities.
We cannot avoid stress and hardship, but we can decide for ourselves, regardless of pressures or influences, how we respond to it. We can also decide when stress has become intolerable, and cap it before it overflows into every aspect of our lives.
We do not 'have to' repeat the mistakes of others. We do not 'have to' conform to the expectations of society or industry. We can choose to relocate ourselves both emotionally and geographically if the environment we live in no longer supports our well-being.
The Sampo Generation are not their parent's generation. They have observed and rightly reasoned that living with unrelenting stress is an untenable option. But they have failed to understand that living without stress and pressure is simply a fantasy.
As the years pass and the number of families dwindle, much more than a workforce will be lost.
But this loss is not inevitable, nor does it need to be accepted as a fait accompli. The obstacles facing young South Koreans are not insurmountable and the future of South Korea is not inescapably bleak.
Perceptions, not percentages, need to be the focus. Not just for repopulating South Korea, but for healing the wounds of both generations.
Amanda Price (amanda-price@bigpond.com) is the former director of Hillcrest College's International Student Department. She has a background in science, history and literature and has been consulting on Asian affairs for more than 10 years. Her special interest is world history and she is the founder of Griffith University's History Readers. She writes full time.
