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- Almost 70% of South Korea's millennials have college degrees.
- But they're overqualified for the labor market, resulting in a high unemployment rate.
- Known as the "kangaroo tribe," many still live with their parents because of high housing costs.
Kwon Joon-yeop
Kwon graduated in 2022 from Yonsei University, a top college where he swam on the varsity team and earned a double degree in physical education and public administration. He lives in Gangnam — Seoul's glitzy city center — in a four-room apartment that his family has owned for generations.
He works as a data analyst at a multinational tech firm, in a country where stable, white-collar jobs are glorified as the key to a good life. On weekends, he wins swimming competitions and is set to represent Seoul in under-30 tournaments.
But like most young and unmarried South Koreans, he lives with his parents, and despite earning more than the national average, he won't even consider buying his own home for the next 10 years. If he saves enough, maybe he can afford a car by then, he said.
"It feels a bit hopeless, like we are the damned ones," Kwon said.
Hong Seo-yoon, 36, manages a nonprofit for disabled rights in Korea and runs advocacy classes at Seoul National University in her spare time for around $3,700 a month. She's worked as an anchor at the Korean Broadcasting System and as the founder of multiple NGOs. Hong, who uses a wheelchair, also sits on the board of several Korean nonprofits for disability access.
She spent her life savings and took out a hefty loan to buy her first home in Seoul — a 600-square-foot apartment built 30 years ago — for $300,000 in 2019. Now, though, with her current salary and mortgage interest piling up, Hong told Insider she's worried about her financial future.
Kwon and Hong belong to Generation MZ, a collective term for South Korea's millennials and Gen Zers, who often get grouped together for their digital fluency and outlook on life.
Generation MZ — anyone born between 1980 and 2005 — accounts for almost a third of the country's population of around 52 million people.
It makes up Korea's most educated generation and is the country's first youth generation known for speaking up about social issues and the climate.
Generation MZ is also characterized by intense financial anxiety, as young Koreans like Hong and Kwon see their life goals drifting further away while housing, transportation, and education prices reach record highs.
Insider spoke with five South Koreans of Generation MZ, as well as finance and generational experts, to gain a better understanding of the generation.
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Only 12.7% of Generation MZ singles and 36.6% MZ married couples are homeowners, according to data from Statistics Korea, the government Census agency.
By comparison, 47.8% of US millennials own homes, per an analysis of 2020 Census data by Apartment List. US millennials comprise an older age range of 27- to 42-year-olds.
That's not to say Koreans don't want to own homes. A 2020 survey of 2,889 Koreans in their 20s found that nearly 95% think purchasing a house is essential. Kwon, the data analyst, said owning property is enshrined as a sign of status for most Koreans.
But Kwon, who makes $60,000 a year, doesn't know if he'll ever buy his own house.
"In terms of my limit, if I'm not married, maybe I'll move out and rent a place when I'm 35 or 36," Kwon said. He said he saves 70% of his income by staying with his parents.
The average home sale price in Seoul was $876,215 in 2022, compared to average salaries of $26,600 to $37,660 for Koreans between the ages of 25 to 39, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has reported.
With soaring housing costs and rising bank interest rates, many young and unmarried South Koreans don't have the funds to seriously consider being homeowners. The Korea Financial Times reported that middle-income households can afford only 2.6% of the houses in Seoul.
It's why they call themselves the "kangaroo tribe," a reference to baby kangaroos, or joeys, known for being late to leave their mother's pouch. At least 42.5% of Generation MZ still live with their parents, according to a 2022 report by Statistics Korea.
In Korea, it's socially acceptable to sacrifice one's independence for the practical gain of avoiding rental costs.
For Hong, the nonprofit founder, surging rental prices pushed her to take the plunge and buy her apartment with a loan. She didn't have the option of staying with her parents, who live in Changwon, a city on Korea's southeastern coast, and rental costs were rising every week in 2019, she said.
"I was so afraid that my landlord would keep asking me to increase the rental cost," she said.
Park Minjun
In South Korea, annual college tuition averages around $5,000 a year, compared to an average of $9,377 for in-state and $27,279 for out-of-state annual tuition in the US, according to the Education Data Initiative.
Less than 30% of college students in Korea are financing their education with student loans, Eyal Victor Mamou, the CEO of the Korean consultancy Koisra, told Insider.
Park Min-jun, 25, is working on his master's degree; he rents a studio apartment in Seoul for $6,000 a year and spends around $5,400 on tuition a year. His parents live in South Korea's second-largest city, Busan, and support him with part of his expenses, he told Insider.
Most of Park's friends at his college, Seoul National University, receive cash from their parents to tide them over while they study, he said.
"The student-loan problem in Korea is not as serious as in the US, where most college graduates have to start their social lives with a heavy debt," Kim Seong-kon, a professor emeritus in cultural studies and the former dean of international affairs at Seoul National University, told Insider.
Park chips in by earning $1,100 a month waiting tables at a Korean barbecue restaurant, tutoring undergraduate students, and working as a research assistant.
He's got enough left over to spend on occasional trips to nearby holiday locations like Jeju Island, which is just a short flight from Seoul. He's currently saving up for a vacation to Indonesia. "If we had student loans at US levels, that would cause social hysteria," he said. "It's common for people to try to save up while in school."
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As of February, the unemployment rate for people between 20 and 29 in South Korea was 7%, according to a report by Statistics Korea. That's an increase of 1.2 percentage points from January.
By comparison, the unemployment rate in the US for 25- to 34-year-olds was 3.9% in February, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Korean labor market doesn't have enough high-paying jobs sought by young graduates, Sang Kim, the director of communications at the Korea Economic Institute, told Insider.
"In the past, people worked hard to get into prestigious universities, which guaranteed prestigious jobs," she said. "But today, the reality is that even with degrees from top schools, people are having a hard time finding the high-quality jobs they want."
The idea that university acceptance guaranteed success was so prevalent in Korea that it was dubbed the "golden-ticket syndrome" by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a United Nations observer.
Park is pursuing a master's degree in international relations. He's already preparing his backup options if he can't find a job with his desired salary — between $30,000 and $40,000 a year — and is looking into Ph.D. programs. Postgraduate degree holders earn an average of $53,700 a year in Korea, per Statistics Korea.
"The jobs are definitely there, I just don't know if the pay is right," he said.
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Despite Korea having low levels of student debt, more young Koreans are now taking loans, said Mamou, the Koisra CEO. He estimates that around 35% of loans in Korea are given to Generation MZ borrowers.
Korea's younger generation is increasingly resorting to "bittoo," slang for taking a big loan to invest in stocks, in hopes of striking it rich.
Sam Kyungmoon Son, an adjunct lecturer at Kyungwoon University and an independent consultant at the management-consulting firm VisionWise, previously told Insider's Cheryl Teh that the practice poses a huge risk, but young Koreans are so desperate, they take the leap anyway.
Park said some of his friends borrowed several years' worth of salary in 2022 to invest in cryptocurrency and subsequently lost their life savings when the market crashed in May.
"I think that demonstrates where Generation MZ belongs, the financial anxiety that belongs to this generation," he said.
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In 2022, total personal-luxury-goods spending by South Koreans increased by 24%, a recent study by Morgan Stanley found, as reported in The Korea Times.
Shinsegae, one of Korea's biggest luxury-department-store chains, said Generation MZ accounted for almost 40% of total luxury sales in 2021, The Korea Times reported.
Young Koreans tend to gravitate toward luxury items as "psychological compensation" for being unable to afford undeniable symbols of success, like property, Kim, the professor, said.
"Since they won't be able to own a home due to the astronomical real-estate prices in South Korea, they buy a luxury car instead," he said.
This generation's fixation on brand-name items is due to a "flex" culture, or buying luxury goods as status symbols, he added.
While Korea's older generations saved more to survive tough economic situations, younger people see luxury items more as investments that bring them joy or satisfaction, Kwak Geum-joo, a psychology professor at Seoul National University, told The Korea Times.
More than 60% of 1,000 Korean adults surveyed between 2020 and 2021 said they felt it was "fairly important" or "very important" to be seen as rich, a study by Economic Affairs found.
Kim So-hee
Economic uncertainty has birthed an opposing movement to "flex culture" that's gaining steam among Generation MZ Koreans: "jjantech," or money-saving investment. Essentially, it means scrimping however they can, like skipping meals or walking 10,000 steps a day to earn 7 cents.
The typical Korean in Generation MZ who earns a salary near the national average saves around 44% of their income, Mamou said.
"I try to save as much as I can," Kim So-hee, a 26-year-old engineer at Samsung Electronics, told Insider.
To cut down on food expenses, she eats the free meals that her company provides during weekdays for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The practice helps Kim save two-thirds of her monthly income while living alone in a rented apartment near her workplace.
Park Su-ah, a 25-year-old accounts assistant, told Insider she saves around 70% of her $20,000 annual salary.
"We have a common saying in Korea: You have to pay to breathe," she said.
She dreams of taking a weeklong vacation in France, for which she's budgeted $800, apart from flight costs. Park saves more by living with her parents in Goyang-si, one of Seoul's satellite cities, and takes an hour-long bus ride every day to work at a publishing house in Seoul.
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More than 50% of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s no longer view marriage as a necessity, a nationwide social survey conducted by Statistics Korea in 2022 found.
Almost a third of the survey's respondents said a lack of money is one reason they don't want to get married.
Korea's marriage rate hit record lows in 2022, with 192,000 couples getting married among a population of 51 million people, per The Korea Herald. Those who do get married are getting married later.
"It's been traditionally expected that individuals get married in their late 20s or early 30s, after completing their education and establishing a stable career," Mamou said. "However, in recent years, these expectations have become weaker due to economic challenges."
None of the young Koreans who spoke to Insider have concrete plans to get married, though several have partners.
At 36, Hong, the part-time lecturer, is in no rush to get engaged.
"If you ask me if my current relationship is similar to the role of my family's, it's not," she said.
Park, the master's student, said many Korean men give themselves a financial checklist before their wedding.
"Guys who want to get married are especially anxious about saving up — they need to complete this checklist, buying a house, buying a car," he said. "It's a lot of stress, and it's all financial goals."
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In February, South Korea reported the world's lowest fertility rate of 0.78 children per woman. A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed in order to maintain a stable population. By comparison, the fertility rate in the US is around 1.6, according to the World Bank.
"This is one of the most serious, if not the most important, issues facing Korean society, and the government has been trying to address the issue for decades," Kim, from the Korea East Institute, said, of the country's birth rate.
Kwon, the data analyst, said he wouldn't consider having more than two children because of the cost.
"In Korea, we say that kids are the machines that eat money," he said. Food prices are rising, and there's an expectation in Korea for young parents to enroll their children in expensive programs like music classes and tutoring lessons, Kwon said.
A 2022 survey by Korea's Ministry of Education found that 78.3% of students in 3,000 school classes receive private tutoring outside public school. Married couples are spending more each year on private tuition, up to an average of $3,300 in 2022, according to Statistics Korea.
Many in Generation MZ worry about pausing their careers to have children, said Kim, the professor.
"They seem to think that working and raising children are incompatible, if not impossible," he said.
Hong said she'd consider having a child only if her partner agrees to be in charge of parental duties and lets her continue running her nonprofit. "If I'm to have a traditional mother's role, I'm not going to give birth," she said.
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"The older generation define success as 'having fame, social prestige, and money.' However, Generation MZ thinks that as long as they enjoy what they do, they are successful, both professionally and personally," Kim, the professor, told Insider.
Kim, the Samsung engineer, said she doesn't expect to become wealthy.
For her, happiness looks like the financial capability to buy good food for the people around her. "Also, I think that having a lot of good people around is really a kind of success as well," she added.
Compared to their older counterparts, Generation MZ Koreans tend to value self-care and work-life balance over purely focusing on their salaries, said Mamou, the CEO of Koisra.
"They're realistic about their goals and prefer a comfortable life over taking risks," he said.
But their definition of success still hinges on becoming financially stable and independent, Mamou added.
Kwon agrees — his priority now is saving money. "I got into a college I wanted to be in. I reached my goals. I can call that a success," he said.
Park, the student, said he thinks he'll be successful if he reaches a director-level role at a large firm. But it's not salary or prestige he's after, he said.
"If I can make people's lives better, have a personal impact at a director level, then that would define success to me," he said.
Hong Seo-yoon
"Generation MZ is against virtually everything that the previous generations were stuck on, including Confucian social norms, seniority, and extreme political ideology," Kim, the professor, said.
That includes the partisan politics that Korea's older folk have fixated on for decades; young Koreans generally don't support either right or left ideologies, Kim said.
One notable exception is the largely conservative, "anti-feminist" movement rising among Korean men in their 20s who feel that recent gender-equality policies discriminate against them. Many of them voted for Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's president, who ran in 2022 on the promise that he'd abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
For the most part, young Koreans are more sensitive to social inequality than the generations that came before, said Mamou.
"The MZ generation, especially the millennial group, are still aware of the Korean traditions and the concepts and principles of the conservative Korean society," he said. "They're trying to balance and find their own way with respect to tradition."
Kwon, the data analyst, said a tradition commonly despised by young Koreans is the country's workplace drinking culture. Junior colleagues are often pressured to drink or sing karaoke with their senior colleagues after business hours, a trend prevalent in East Asia.
There's been growing backlash against the habit, but many still attend their bosses' drinking sessions out of respect, Kwon said.
"If an old person says you have to go drink, then you have to go follow them," he said.
Hong, the nonprofit founder who uses a wheelchair, said people with disabilities face far less discrimination among Generation MZ Koreans compared to their predecessors.
More companies are now willing to hire employees with disabilities, she said, though she added there's a lot more room for improvement.
"I'm actually witnessing a change in the way of a more equal society for the disabled," she said.
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When asked about their outlook on the future, all of the Koreans Insider spoke to mentioned concerns about their finances.
Much of their perspective on life weighs heavily on their ability — or inability — to work toward owning a home in a volatile housing market.
"Young people in South Korea feel much more pressured and stressed about their economic condition compared to those in the United States," said Kim, the communications director at KEI.
Home prices are also rising in the US, resulting in millennials there renting longer and buying later, Insider's Hillary Hoffower previously reported. The median sale prices of homes in the US jumped 85% over the last 10 years, to $467,700 at the end of 2022.
Many of the societal challenges young Koreans face, such as a record-low birth rate and a tension between tradition and individuality, are prevalent in China and Japan, too.
Kwon, the data analyst, believes housing prices will fall when Korea's population shrinks but is worried he'll have to pay exorbitant taxes to fund healthcare for the aging.
Still, he thinks he and his peers are up for the challenge. "We're quick learners, open to discussion, and we're really strict about our moral code, in doing our best and treating others, more than our parents' generation," he said.
"We just have to keep doing what we're doing, don't do anything stupid," he said. "If the economy improves, then we'll be fine."
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