[WHY] Why do young people keep flocking to overcrowded Seoul?

Many people, especially younger people, eagerly move to the capital city in the hopes of having a better job and lifestyle. But many others say this is not a choice, but the only path for survival.

A street in Myeong-dong, central Seoul, is filled with visitors on June 4. [YONHAP]

Imagine half of a country’s population squeezed into a mere 11 percent of its land.

That's Korea right now.

According to Statistics Korea, 50.5 percent of the country’s population was living in Seoul and its surrounding cities last year.

The percentage of people living in the greater Seoul area has been gradually increasing since the 1970s as the country’s main industry gradually shifted from manufacturing.

Statistics Korea anticipates the number will rise to as high as 53 percent by 2030.

Many people, especially younger people, eagerly move to the capital city in the hopes of having a better job and lifestyle. But many others say this is not a choice, but the only path for survival.

“If I had a choice, I would have chosen to live in Busan and work there and not even think about coming to Seoul,” said 27-year-old office worker Kim Ji-hyun, who used to live in Gangnam, southern Seoul, near his workplace after moving from the port city of Busan, the second largest city in Korea.

According to Kim, he had little choice but to come to Seoul to get a job because of the lack of decent finance jobs offered in his home city that matched his desired level of salary and work environment.

Provincial regions outside of Seoul continue to empty out, yielding endless problems. So why do Koreans insist that coming to the greater Seoul area is the only option they have?

No decent job opportunities

“Most of my friends, including myself, came to Seoul after graduating from university,” said a 26-year-old office worker, who came to Seoul and started living in the capital in 2020. Before coming to Seoul, he lived all his life in Gongju, South Chungcheong, 160 kilometers (99 miles) south of Seoul.

“I also thought about having a job back in my hometown, but there was nothing I wanted to do.”

The office worker said he'd never thought about coming to Seoul in his entire life. He once thought about becoming a public official in Gongju, but ultimately decided to come to Seoul after he realized that was not what he wanted to do for a living.

Excluding jobs related to public institutions, there weren’t many options for him at home.

“If there were more and diverse job opportunities in my hometown, even cities close to Gongju, I would have just worked there.”

A person looks down on the old downtown in Gongju, South Chungcheong, from a mountain on Oct. 18, 2021. [YONHAP]

According to the Korea Human Resource Development Institute for Health & Welfare (Krihs), 25.4 percent of alumni who studied at non-Seoul universities moved to the greater Seoul area in 2022 to get a job.

A stable job, largely referring to permanent employment, was the most important factor that young people considered when moving to the greater Seoul area, according to a report released by the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements in 2022.

High compensation and benefits were also the top two factors that job seekers prioritized when applying for jobs, according to Jobplanet.

More job seekers now also turn to industries related to technology, such as IT and digital financial services, over manufacturing.

“People are moving to Seoul and cities nearby to seek jobs that have a vision, jobs that could help them learn and grow," said Kim Dong-hyun, a professor at Pusan National University (PNU)’s Department of Urban Planning and Engineering.

Most young job seekers in Korea prefer to work at major conglomerates, according to research co-conducted by the Korean Council for University Education and the state-run Korea Development Institute in 2021. Around 20 percent of university students and graduates preferred to work in large companies, the highest percentage of all company types in the survey, followed by public entities at 17.8 percent.

This year, Samsung Electronics was named the top company that college students desired to work for, according to Incruit, a recruitment service company.

Kakao, Naver and Hyundai Motor followed, in that order.

However, major private companies in Korea are mostly located in Seoul. About 58 percent of large companies in Korea with over 300 employees are located in the greater Seoul area. Over half of mid-sized companies also have their headquarters in the capital city and its surroundings.

For those living outside of Seoul and surrounding cities, working at state-owned companies is the most stable option besides working in manufacturing and production.

Job opportunities that could be found in cities outside the greater Seoul area are mostly centered on manufacturing and production because many companies have their factories in these places.

Few entertainment and cultural facilities

“My life would have been very different back in my hometown, especially after work,” the 26-year-old from Gongju said.

“There are almost no cultural activities I can enjoy back home after work.”

According to research conducted by Krihs and Hankook Research in 2021, around 45 percent of the respondents living outside of the greater Seoul area expressed the most displeasure with the lack of cultural and leisure-related facilities.

Citizens visiting COEX Mall in southern Seoul read books and look around the Byeolmadang library on July 23 . [YONHAP]

“Young people in Korea prefer to work and reside in regions that offer a harmonious life, where they could work, play and live,” said Woo Myung-je, a professor at the University of Seoul’s Urban Planning and Design Department, stressing how having innovative and cultural facilities are important to the young generation.

In the greater Seoul area, there were around 383 facilities for cultural activities in each city and province while there were only 142 of them in 14 cities and provinces outside the capital area as of 2021. Distance-wise, cultural facilities were located 2.08 kilometers from each other in Seoul while such facilities were 10.21 kilometers from each other in South Jeolla and 13.32 kilometers in Gangwon.

So, for many of those who live outside the greater Seoul area, enjoying cultural life would often mean paying for long commutes to Seoul and even booking accommodation to see, for instance, a concert by their favorite artist or a musical.

Fans of boy band NCT Dream head to Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Songpa District, southern Seoul, for the band's concert on Sept. 8, 2022. [YONHAP]

Lack of educational opportunities

The educational gap is another issue that is deepening between those living in the greater Seoul area and those living outside of Seoul.

“The amount of information that I received as a student who studied outside of Seoul seems to have been significantly different compared to the students who studied and prepared for the suneung [Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test] in Seoul,” said Lee Kyeong-won, an office worker in her 20s who studied in Daegu before coming to Seoul to attend university.

Lee stressed that going to private cram schools, or hagwon, in her hometown was not as competitive as her friends who studied in Seoul told her. She also added that the cram school she went to in Daegu had limited access to resources.

“Even from elementary school, I was told to aim for the so-called ‘in-Seoul’ universities from my parents,” she said, adding that the fact that high-ranking universities are all located in Seoul is one significant reason why the younger generation is moving to the city.

A student walks on a street in Daechi-dong, southern Seoul, where many cram-schools are located, on July 2. [YONHAP]

This is why many students in Korea commonly target universities in Seoul, including the so-called SKY schools, which refer to Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University.

Around 68 percent of respondents in Statistics Korea's survey said the biggest educational problem associated with overpopulation in greater Seoul was that almost all prestigious universities were located in Seoul.

Opportunities for extracurricular activities being heavily focused on the greater Seoul area followed.

“In the past, there were no terms like jibang university,” said Kim from Pusan National University.

Jibang, meaning a region in Korea, usually refers to cities and areas outside of the greater Seoul area. Koreans nowadays largely categorize universities into “metropolitan” universities in Seoul and its surroundings, and the so-called jibang universities, or provincial universities.

Side effects from relocation of state-owned institutions

The government has been making continuous efforts to decentralize the population in Seoul and its neighbors over decades.

Government ministries were relocated to Sejong after the city was formally established in July 2012, years after former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun suggested the nation relocate its capital to a new location in the central Chungcheong provinces.

Forty-seven central government authorities and institutions moved to Sejong as of 2022, including 23 ministries.

However, whether relocating these administrative institutes to the Chungcheong region was helpful is unclear.

Only 3.3 percent of a total of 10,128 people who moved to Sejong last year were from Seoul, according to Daejeon Sejong Research Institute. In 2014, the figure was as high as 14.8 percent.

The effectiveness of transferring state-owned institutes outside of Seoul was also subjected to debate after the National Pension Service (NPS) saw a record loss last year.

Some experts pointed out that the relocation of its headquarters in Jeonju, 194 kilometers south of Seoul, was behind the NPS’s low performance.

The NPS’s headquarters was moved to Jeonju, North Jeolla, in 2018 as part of the government’s plan to balance regional development.

A total of 164 employees who worked for the fund’s operation have quit their jobs since the move was announced in 2017, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This is more than half of the total 319 employees who now work for the NPS.

Gunamro Culture Square in Haeundae, Busan is vacant on Feb. 29, 2020. [YONHAP]

Debate on the relocation of Korea Development Bank (KDB)'s headquarters to Busan for the sake of resolving regional imbalances has also escalated lately.

The government and the People Power Party plan to transfer KDB’s headquarters to Busan by pushing through the amendment of the Enforcement Decree of the Banking Act at the National Assembly before the general election slated for April next year.

This will leave some 100 employees in Seoul and relocate the rest to Busan.

Around 1,500 employees work at its headquarters in Yeouido, western Seoul.

However, the bank’s employees are fiercely protesting the plan, with some even quitting the company. A total of 168 employees quit the company between 2020 and the first half of the year, according to data shared by Democratic Party Rep. Hwang Un-ha.

Nearly 80 percent of the 168 people who left were in their 20s and 30s.

The number of resignations from KDB rose after the government included the plan as one of its 120 policy goals in July last year.

Around 20 to 30 employees on average left the company every year, but this rose to 51 in the second half of 2022 after the announcement.

Thirty-nine people left KDB in the first half of this year.

Concerns that regional cities may disappear

Having a high population in the capital city is a natural phenomenon worldwide, but experts say this has developed into more than just a problem in Korea.

“The heavy concentration of the population in the greater Seoul area may lead to problems such as high traffic and rising housing prices in these population-dense areas,” said Woo at the University of Seoul.

The high influx of people into the greater Seoul area has led to rising housing prices.

Around half of households living in apartment complexes were in the greater Seoul area. In Seoul, the prices of around 80 percent of apartment units rose over 100 percent from 2016 to 2021.

The price gap between apartment units in Seoul and the other regions widened to over one billion won in the past three years, doubling from 2017, according to property data platform R114.

“The real serious problem is that it is leading to population loss in areas outside of greater Seoul, putting those local regions at risk of vanishing in the future,” said Woo.

Outside of the greater Seoul area, over one million houses were vacant last year — 15 percent in South Jeolla, 13 percent in Jeju and 12 percent in Gangwon — according to Statistics Korea.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]