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By Kim Jae-heun
Childhood poverty leads to lower chances of receiving a good education and finding a good job, resulting eventually in another round of poverty in adulthood. Contrary to this, children from affluent families have better chances of gaining a quality education with private tutoring, followed by decent jobs with high salaries and wealth in adulthood.
A 34-year-old man surnamed Park lived in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, for six years until he returned recently to his hometown in the countryside of Mokpo, South Jeolla Province.
It was his dream to open a Japanese-style bar in a metropolis and he strived to achieve it by working day and night at several restaurants as a part-timer. However, the reality was far more challenging than he had expected.
"Making a living as a part-timer in cities like Anyang is almost impossible, especially if you are not a highly educated person. There are barely regular jobs for high school graduates like me except serving at bars or doing night shifts at convenience stores," Park said during an interview with The Korea Times last week.
Park said not all people in his hometown pursue a university education and he wanted to get a job fast so he could start making money and save to get married.
"My family was never wealthy enough to send my brothers and me to university. It would cost nearly 10 million won per semester for all three of us. That is too much for my parents and I don't want them to feel that pressure," Park said.
But Park did not expect to find such a large wage gap between university graduates and high school graduates and now he is confused about his future. Marriage isn't even an idea he can entertain right now.
Park's case is one showing the reality of childhood poverty being an enormous obstacle to social mobility later in life.
According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHSA), those who lived in poverty for more than six years during childhood showed a less than 50 percent university enrollment rate.
Nearly 70 percent of those who grew up in poor families failed to pursue post-secondary education. Among them, 2.1 percent only graduated from middle school.
Some 39 percent of people who suffered poverty for between two to five years in their childhood also finished their academic careers at high school, which is nearly double the number of those who have never experienced poverty.
At worst, those who grew up living in poverty for more than six years make up the largest share of the country's irregular workers and unemployed combined.
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"The experience of poverty in childhood affects one's life of adolescence and we cannot blame the children for their situation. The parents' generation has a bigger responsibility in passing on the poverty to their children," a report by the KIHSA said in November. "Korea has a low child poverty rate at the moment, but it doesn't mean the country should take the issue lightly as it can build up to a serious problem in the long term if the government does not provide them with support."
The KIHSA researchers pointed out that child poverty is not the problem of an individual family but a social issue as it passes on from generation to generation.
"The government should pay more child allowance for elementary and middle school students and raise the salary level. Proving a secure job that promises a certain amount of regular payment is crucial in dealing with the country's low marriage rate and low birthrate," the researchers said in the report.
Poverty does not only affect people's education level and their economic status, but it also influences on their marriage rates.
About 86 percent of people earning less than 50 percent of the nation's median income level were unmarried, while the ratio fell to 40 percent for those earning more than 50 percent. Over 82 percent of married people with children were college graduates.
"For now, I have to find a proper job first. It gets harder for people my age to find part-time jobs too. If I don't have a regular job, forget about a house, I will never find a woman who will marry me," Park said.
Worst economic polarization in 11 years
The gap between the rich and poor does not show signs of narrowing, and the country recorded the worst economic polarization in 11 years this year despite the government's income-led growth plan that raised the minimum wage to improve poor families' incomes.
Unfortunately, raising the minimum wage took away the jobs of irregular workers and part-timers ― people from mostly low-income brackets ― as employers decided to lay them off in order to offset increased labor costs.
According to Statistics Korea, the average income of the top 20 percent of earners was 5.5 times higher than the bottom 20 percent's average, in the third quarter of this year. The disparity is the largest in 11 years.
The report showed the bottom 20 percent's income has been reduced by 7 percent from the previous year to 1.31 million won per month, while the top 20 percent's income rose by 8.8 percent to 9.73 million won.
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