Economic Growth Amid Bipolarizing Income Is No Answer
Korea's GDP is the 15th largest in the world but its gross national happiness (GNH) is ranked far lower at 68th. Even that seems much higher than expected, considering the nation has the lowest birthrate and the highest suicide rate among more than 200 countries on this planet.
So Koreans more than welcomed Cheong Wa Dae's announcement last month that it would develop the nation's own version of the GNH index based on five sub-indices related with public livelihood ― income, employment, education, residence and security ― as laid out by President Lee Myung-bak in his Liberation Day address.
People will no doubt feel happier if they can earn more, attend better schools and have stable jobs. But the problem lies in how, or, in economic terms, the cost to attain this materialistic happiness.
Take the birthrate. Mating and breeding is the foremost instinct of all living things, including humans. But the numbers of marriages and newborns in this country keep declining year by year and have hit the global bottom. This means competition for survival has become so hard here as to forget ― or abandon ― even the most basic desire. In an economic sense, finding a spouse and raising children are no longer a paying business for an increasing number of Koreans because of prohibitive educational costs, soaring housing prices and dwindling jobs, especially decent ones.
The national obsession ― mostly led by the government ― to become an advanced country as soon as possible through enhanced competitiveness hardly allows its people any breathing room. Just look at parents who are driven to send their toddlers to after-kindergarten classes, in hopes that they can gain some sort of real-world advantage. No wonder Korean students' sense of happiness is especially lower, showing a wide gap even with the last-placed runners-up.
Since the global spread of the H1N1 virus, the government has made quite a fuss, forcing schools to check students' temperatures at the gate and dispensing hand sterilizers, which itself can hardly be blamed. The truth is, no student has died of the new flu, but hundreds of middle and high school students kill themselves out of undue burdens to excel above their friends and gain acceptance to prestigious universities.
Just as the government's education system is far more dreadful for kids than the epidemic, North Korea's alleged nuclear bombs are far less threatening for national survival than the rock-bottom birthrate, as the government's health-welfare minister predicts.
If the current birthrate of 1.19 remains unchanged, Korea's population will start to shrink from 2018 and fall 10 percent from the present level by 2050, when seniors will represent four out of every 10 Koreans.
The Lee Myung-bak administration may be able to jack up the birthrate ― even considerably ― if it drastically expands spending on mothers and children to some of the levels of more successful countries, such as France. Likewise, it could pull down the suicide rate by paying far greater attention to these social ills and staging long-term campaigns.
Ironically, however, the Lee administration will hardly be able to make people happy unless it drops its administrative goal of making Korea a G-7 member as soon as possible through encouraging limitless competition among Koreans as well as with foreigners.
The economic growth of this country is important, but hardly ensures its ultimate goal named happiness ― unless it is human.
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