By Jason Lim
If you think I am talking about the famous novel by Victor Hugo, you are wrong. Rather, I am channeling another famous French man in Nostradamus by predicting the future state of Korea circa 2050: a country filled with a bunch of miserable, lonely old people surviving on alternative facts and conspiracy theories.
In a Bloomberg article titled, "South Korea Crosses a Population Rubicon in Warning to the World," Sam Kim recently wrote a wonderfully informative article about Korea's impending demographic doom. We have been forewarned about this for at least a decade, but Kim framed the problem in a way that really pops out: "The typical age of a new mother in South Korea is 32, according to the National Statistics Office. The number of births per woman sank to a record low of 0.84 last year, the lowest rate in the world; in Seoul the rate is 0.64. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, Korea's share of elderly people will become the largest of any country."
This being Bloomberg, the article then goes on to focus on the economic impacts of an ageing population and how the South Korean government is trying to mitigate its downsides with a hodgepodge of different social and economic policies. However, the line that really caught my eye was this: "People living alone already make up almost 40 percent of the population."
Let this sink in a bit. Not only does Korea have an ageing population, but also an overwhelmingly isolated population. So, it's not just the number of people that's decreasing; it's the number of people living together that's also decreasing. If a family unit is the atomic unit that makes up the larger community and nation, then this isn't merely a macroeconomics problem: it's a problem in quantum demographics.
The lack of everyday community logically (albeit not inevitably) means the absence of a messy forum through which we grow as social creatures, adapting to live with others, dealing with those who think differently from us, learning to ask for help and give help, growing resilient in the face of challenges, being witnesses to one another's journey, and sharing our personal narratives into the larger collective storytelling that gives cohesion and meaning to individual lives.
What Korea is ageing into is a nation filled with old people unfamiliar with intimacy, psychologically frail, isolated and lonely, resentful and skeptical, and increasingly demonized by the younger generation who will undoubtedly begrudge that they have to pay for the upkeep of the elderly.
Surprise! We might be here already.
In "South Korea's elderly conservatives turn to YouTube, and conspiracy theories," Grace Moon writes an incredibly illuminating story about the Korean elderly developing into "Alt-right communities based on misinformation and religious fundamentalism."
If you spent any time in Korea in recent years, you've seen them. Large crowds of belligerent elderly spouting hateful and incendiary rhetoric against what they consider the existential threat of the liberal left. You would be justified to wonder who's giving these folks their marching orders. Apparently, it's YouTube. According to Moon, nine out of the top 10 political channels in Korea are conservative, "where nostalgia for an autocratic, anti-communist regime has mixed with a sense of political alienation and conservative Christianity to create a fertile environment for misinformation, ranging from reds-under-the-bed paranoia to Covid-19 denialism."
Of course, the elderly in 2050 won't be the elderly in 2021, which means that the current pattern might not hold. It could actually be worse. At least, today's elderly grew up during Korea's industrialization sprint where extended families were the norm and lifetime employment (with lifetime work friendships) were expected. In other words, their descent into the alt-right, conspiracy rabbit hole is a relatively recent phenomena driven by the breakup of traditional family units, growing inequality, and sense of displacement in a rapidly changing society and culture.
The elderly in 2050 are the Gen Z's of today. And they are getting a head start. As the recent local elections showed, young men have moved to the right of the political spectrum as a demographic, much for the same reasons as today's elderly have. On top of the inequality and lack of opportunities and means that deprive them of what they felt entitled to as basic life experiences ― dating, marriage and children ― the young men of Korea seem to be in a full-scale war against feminism, which they seem to view as an anti-male movement that unfairly gives advantages to women over men, in collusion with the woke left. As Moon points out, "This movement has spawned a number of popular content creators. While the older generation took four or more years to reach 200,000 followers, some of these new influencers have hit that milestone in just twelve months," according to the Asia Business Daily.
So, when this generation of isolated, lonely, conspiracy-prone, passive-aggressive, socially maladapted, yet entitled generation ― riven by a gender war eagerly fed by opportunistic politicians and conspiracy pundits on social media ― become the largest demographics group as the elderly in 2050… Les Miserables, indeed.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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In a Bloomberg article titled, "South Korea Crosses a Population Rubicon in Warning to the World," Sam Kim recently wrote a wonderfully informative article about Korea's impending demographic doom. We have been forewarned about this for at least a decade, but Kim framed the problem in a way that really pops out: "The typical age of a new mother in South Korea is 32, according to the National Statistics Office. The number of births per woman sank to a record low of 0.84 last year, the lowest rate in the world; in Seoul the rate is 0.64. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, Korea's share of elderly people will become the largest of any country."
This being Bloomberg, the article then goes on to focus on the economic impacts of an ageing population and how the South Korean government is trying to mitigate its downsides with a hodgepodge of different social and economic policies. However, the line that really caught my eye was this: "People living alone already make up almost 40 percent of the population."
Let this sink in a bit. Not only does Korea have an ageing population, but also an overwhelmingly isolated population. So, it's not just the number of people that's decreasing; it's the number of people living together that's also decreasing. If a family unit is the atomic unit that makes up the larger community and nation, then this isn't merely a macroeconomics problem: it's a problem in quantum demographics.
The lack of everyday community logically (albeit not inevitably) means the absence of a messy forum through which we grow as social creatures, adapting to live with others, dealing with those who think differently from us, learning to ask for help and give help, growing resilient in the face of challenges, being witnesses to one another's journey, and sharing our personal narratives into the larger collective storytelling that gives cohesion and meaning to individual lives.
What Korea is ageing into is a nation filled with old people unfamiliar with intimacy, psychologically frail, isolated and lonely, resentful and skeptical, and increasingly demonized by the younger generation who will undoubtedly begrudge that they have to pay for the upkeep of the elderly.
Surprise! We might be here already.
In "South Korea's elderly conservatives turn to YouTube, and conspiracy theories," Grace Moon writes an incredibly illuminating story about the Korean elderly developing into "Alt-right communities based on misinformation and religious fundamentalism."
If you spent any time in Korea in recent years, you've seen them. Large crowds of belligerent elderly spouting hateful and incendiary rhetoric against what they consider the existential threat of the liberal left. You would be justified to wonder who's giving these folks their marching orders. Apparently, it's YouTube. According to Moon, nine out of the top 10 political channels in Korea are conservative, "where nostalgia for an autocratic, anti-communist regime has mixed with a sense of political alienation and conservative Christianity to create a fertile environment for misinformation, ranging from reds-under-the-bed paranoia to Covid-19 denialism."
Of course, the elderly in 2050 won't be the elderly in 2021, which means that the current pattern might not hold. It could actually be worse. At least, today's elderly grew up during Korea's industrialization sprint where extended families were the norm and lifetime employment (with lifetime work friendships) were expected. In other words, their descent into the alt-right, conspiracy rabbit hole is a relatively recent phenomena driven by the breakup of traditional family units, growing inequality, and sense of displacement in a rapidly changing society and culture.
The elderly in 2050 are the Gen Z's of today. And they are getting a head start. As the recent local elections showed, young men have moved to the right of the political spectrum as a demographic, much for the same reasons as today's elderly have. On top of the inequality and lack of opportunities and means that deprive them of what they felt entitled to as basic life experiences ― dating, marriage and children ― the young men of Korea seem to be in a full-scale war against feminism, which they seem to view as an anti-male movement that unfairly gives advantages to women over men, in collusion with the woke left. As Moon points out, "This movement has spawned a number of popular content creators. While the older generation took four or more years to reach 200,000 followers, some of these new influencers have hit that milestone in just twelve months," according to the Asia Business Daily.
So, when this generation of isolated, lonely, conspiracy-prone, passive-aggressive, socially maladapted, yet entitled generation ― riven by a gender war eagerly fed by opportunistic politicians and conspiracy pundits on social media ― become the largest demographics group as the elderly in 2050… Les Miserables, indeed.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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