Lifestyles of Baby Boomers and their Echo

[한겨레] Survey data shows younger generation marrying and buying homes later

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

After the Korean War, there was a surge in the country's birthrate as couples began to settle and have children. This surge is now called the Baby Boom generation (1955-1967). As that generation began to age and have children of their own, their offspring have come to be known as the Baby Boom Echo (1979-1992).

The name literally describes those young people as echoing the boom of their parents' generation. How are they living differently from each other, Baby boom generation and their children, Echo-boom generation?

On August 2, Statistics Korea published 'Characteristics of the Baby Boomer Generation and the Echo Generation, According to the Surveys', which analyzed the two generations, which have a 30-year-gap and show the different characteristics from past to now.

Baby boomers are people who are now aged between 49 to 53, at total of 6.95 million people, or 13.9% of the Korean population. Their children, born from 1979 to 1992, total 9.54 million, 19.1% of population.

The Baby Boom Echo are generally more highly educated than their parents, but are taking longer to get married and become homeowners. Only 45.5% if Baby Boomers were still unmarried by age 25. Only 12.5% of them graduated from university but 58.1% of them owned homes.

On the other hand, 91.7% of the Echo remained unmarried at the age of 25. 75.6% of them are university-educated, and the rate of homeowners was lower than their parents' generation at 48.9%.

46.6% of the Echo Generation lives in rented homes. 31% of them hold bi-annual leases and 15.4% are homeowners.

A source from Statistics Korea said, "Since Echo-boom generation is still young and hasn't saved enough money yet, so many of them are renting, but around age 31 more of them take out bi-annual leases."

Retired baby boomers often (32.7%) start their own businesses, as it is hard for them to find other jobs. On the other hand, 89.9% of Echo Boomers are paid workers, while 10% are self-employed.

The survey shows a total of 580,000 single person households. 8.3% of Baby Boomers and 10.5% of Echo Boomers live alone. It is assumed that baby boomers live alone due to being divorced or widowed and echo boomers live by themselves after relocating for education and employment.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

공식 SNS [통하니][트위터][미투데이]| 구독신청 [한겨레신문][한겨레21]

국제

Lifestyles of Baby Boomers and their Echo