Young Korean parents consider emigration in wake of ferry disaster
By Kim Hyo-jin
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An increasing number of young Korean parents are considering moving overseas following the Sewol ferry disaster in April, which killed more than 300 passengers, most of them students.
Some frustrated family members of the victims have publicly expressed their intention to leave the country. But the tragedy and the government’s poor handling of it presented a serious question to many more: Will my children be safe and happy living in this country?
“I used to get 15 inquires a week about how to emigrate before the Sewol disaster, but now I receive 35 to 40 inquires,” said Sammy Lee, a consultant at the SYL Global Emigration Consulting Company, based in Seoul.
“My clients ― especially those in their 30s or 40s ― say they don’t want to raise their children here.”
Lee said the Sewol disaster affected young parents who already had concerns about raising their children in Korea due to economic difficulties and the competitive educational environment.
He said that more than half of his clients directly cited the tragedy as the main reason they wanted to leave Korea.
The government was widely criticized for its slow and ineffective rescue operation. Now safety, which was not as high a concern before the accident, is a growing concern for many young couples.
“It’s just how I feel. If you were a parent, you’d feel the same way. There’s a risk my own child may fall victim to that kind of incident,” said Joo Sang-gyu, 42, who runs an online advertising company and is father to a 7-year-old boy.
“I had pondered the idea of emigrating from Korea before, but since this incident, I’ve made up my mind to move,” said Joo, who added he was considering moving to a European country with a more stable social welfare system where he said his child would be exposed to more cultures and ideas.
“It’s as if nothing has been changed by the disaster. I look at this society and it seems like it won’t change for me either,” Joo said. “The government is supposed to help people with the money I pay in taxes, but after the accident I feel there’s no use in giving money to this government.
“I want to live in a society that deserves my taxes,” he added.
In the decades after the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korea grew rapidly from a backward agrarian economy with a gross domestic product smaller than Afghanistan’s to one of the world’s most developed economies. However, critics argue that while the quality of living has improved greatly, social welfare remains lacking.
“South Korean public spending is one of the lowest among (advanced) countries. The government has so far mainly focused on economic growth, so now there’s a problem with the quality of people’s lives in Korea,” said KooJeong-woo, a professor of sociology at Sungkyunkwan University.
“People have started to think perhaps it’s not safe to live in South Korea anymore, seeing what happened and how the government responded in the aftermath of the incident,” said Koo.
In the 151 days that have passed since the Sewol tragedy, a special bill to launch a deeper probe into the cause of the incident has not been passed by the rival parties. They have yet to find a compromise with the families of the Sewol victims, who argue the proposed agreements reached thus far do not sufficiently address their concerns.
A handful of those families plan to move to other countries after the dust from the accident has fully settled, said one father of a high school student who died in the accident.
“I know there are people who have left the country after a tragic accident before. When I first saw that kind of news, I didn’t understand why ― but now I do,” said Lee Nam-seok, who lost his son in the Sewol accident.
“Personally, I just want to take some rest, and leave everything behind. But wouldn’t society get worse if more people thought like me?” said Lee, who is staging a protest against the government’s handling of the disaster in Seoul.
In the past, inquiries about emigration have increased whenever there were national tragedies.
“There will never be a resolution of this issue,” said Kim Sun-duk, who lost her son in the 1999 Sealand disaster, in which a group of 19 kindergarten children and four teachers lost their lives in a fire.
“The memory of the incident will just fade out,” she added. “This is a pattern that keeps repeating itself in Korea.”
Kim and other parents of the deceased children called for a deeper investigation into that disaster, but failed to find the answers they were looking for. Kim now lives in New Zealand, where she runs a Chinese restaurant with her husband.
“I came here to escape from my pain. The welfare and my standard of living is better here, but my life goes on the same. It might be less so than in Korea, but it’s still competitive here.”
Kim Hyo-jin is a Korea Times intern.