South Korea is a young democracy where its citizens have been working very hard to build up their country. This has resulted into the fact that they are now a member of the G20. The country has in this short period of time achieved massive goals, such as: great infrastructure, a blooming car-, shipbuilding-, electronic-, fashion- and so forth industry, top medical competences and much more.
Nevertheless, even if most of the people I meet don't want to hear about it, also the Republic of Korea has, as any other country, areas of improvement.
Regarding housing, we know that Seoul has been growing very fast the past decades and countless apartment buildings rose rapidly, which didn't enhance the architectural sight. But the metropolitan with it suburbs houses almost half of the countries inhabitants and logically the living places aren’t very large, but many people can live rather central.
10 minutes walking from the USAG Youngsan Base, which is situated in central Seoul, I found poor housing conditions and definitely an area of improvement, but maybe not a top priority for there are more pressing issues in need of development.
Some other major issues South Korea is working on are e.g.
Suicide is the fourth cause of death in South Korea; the high suicide rate is a reflection of changing and conflicting gender roles, economic hardship and domestic violence. WHO has estimated that 90 percent of all suicide victims have some kind of mental health condition, most commonly depression or substance of abuse. Social factors are contributing to the high suicide rates among students and gay men.
Suicide is the fourth cause of death in South Korea; the high suicide rate is a reflection of changing and conflicting gender roles, economic hardship and domestic violence. WHO has estimated that 90 percent of all suicide victims have some kind of mental health condition, most commonly depression or substance of abuse. Social factors are contributing to the high suicide rates among students and gay men.
Many employees, who aren’t fortunate enough to have a governmental – or large company as their employer, work 11 hours/day, six days/week with only four holidays per year.
Pensions:
Just as the democracy, the pension plan is relatively young. And the major part of elderly, who have reached pension age, can’t provide for themselves, which results into the fact that often the oldest child or son-in-law provides for them.
Equality between men and woman:
An issue I would like to learn more about, but from what I’ve seen and hear so far, here is also work needed. Young well educated woman don’t have the same job possibilities as men and when they get married they’re expected to become homemakers. Result: they marry late and the birthrate, even if it has been slightly increasing the passed two years, is among the lowest in the world.
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