50 people who live alone in Seoul invited to promote city services
One-person households in Seoul have been on the rise and the Seoul Metropolitan Government has decided to use the power of those individuals' social media presence to promote the city's related welfare services. Gettyimagesbank
City gov't to harness solo citizens' social media power to better serve one-person households
By Ko Dong-hwan
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has started assembling a group of people who live alone in the city to act as online ambassadors to more actively promote the city's welfare services for one-person households.
The One-Person Households Division under the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Women and Family Policy Affairs Office said Monday the city authority began searching for 50 individuals in the capital, aged from their 20s to 50s. The draft for the selection of civic volunteers will be open for two weeks starting April 18.
The ambassadors will engage in the campaign through either Instagram, Facebook or a personal online blog in May and continue until November. Those who publish an online post advertising the city service at least once a month will be rewarded with up to 90,000 won ($70) each month.
The city government currently offers various welfare services for one-person households including: accompanying eligible people to hospitals; checking in on them during recovery; preparing nutritional meals for them; helping them with tenancy contracts; escorting them home safely after work; and financial counseling.
The services were launched as part of the city government's campaign to target “inconvenience in daily life, safety concerns and grievance in social networks” that particularly stood out among one-person households.
Women in their 20s and 30s represent a majority of the rising one-person households in Seoul and other cities across the nation. They thus call for city welfare services that foster their safety and quality of life. Gettyimagesbank
The city government's search scope for online influencers, however, is limited to those with at least one social media channel with at least 50 subscribers or at least 10 publicly-accessible posts. The city government said they will give priority to those with disabilities when selecting ambassadors.
“Various welfare services offered by the city government will be actually experienced by those living alone in the city and introduced via their social media platforms,” Kim Seon-sun, Chief of Women and Family Policy Affairs Office, said. “That way we will be able to convey more vividly the welfare services that the city government offers its citizens.”
The supporters undertaking the mission to promote Seoul will be invited by the city government to tag along with city officials on in-person trips to various households around the city and witness firsthand how welfare services support beneficiaries. The city government said the supporters will act as reporters covering ― in a notebook style ― how members of the public see the services. Their content, which reflects their experiences, will be published on their own personal social media channels.
Among those who undertake the mission, the city government will select a number of honorary ambassadors. Top social media posts or channels will be shared on
, the official website by the city government dedicated to one-person households.
The number of one-person households in the country has been on a steady rise, from 5.4 million in 2016 to 7.17 million in 2021. Their proportion among overall households in the country rose likewise, from 28 percent in 2016 to 33 percent in 2021. Seoul, following Daejeon, was the second local municipality in the country with the highest ratio of one-person households (37 percent out of nearly 9.5 million households) in 2021.