South Korea
Housing expenditure:
Koreans spend 15% of their gross adjusted disposable income (before taxes) of keeping
a roof over their head. (Belgium average is 20%, reality is way higher)
Average household net adjusted income per capita (per person) is lower than the OECD
average (less disposable income). But the average household net wealth is higher than the
OECD average (higher net wealth.
Disposable income : money you have to spend
Net wealth: assets they own
Even though they own less, they have more assets
Employment rate: 66%
The percentage of labour force that has been unemployed for a year of longer is
currently nearly 0%. (lowest rate in OECD).
In lot of Asian countries people do not have societal security, being unemployed for longer
than a year is not an option because the government does not help to put food on the table. If
they do not work they won’t have money.
In general: unemployment rate is really low
Education: 89% have completed upper education. They score pretty high on ranking.
Life expectancy: 83 years old (above OECD).
82% of people say that they feel safe walking alone at night. Homicide rate is 0.8%.
General satisfaction: 5.8 (bad work-life balance, stress, mental health issues).
Historic facts:
Korea got split up after WWII (1948, establishment of South Korea & North Korea)
DMZ – 1953 (tourist attraction) American soldiers are there.
Agreement to split Korea was proposed by USA (power, they want to be part of
everything)
- Korea was colony of Japan, Japan surrendered during WWII, decided USA won so they
had to decide what to do with Korea, made agreement with the soviet-union that they
could keep the north and USA the south. (thought that Korea was incapable to look
after themselves, so they decided to help them).
Korean people suffered when they were a colony of Japan.
Timeline: do not need to know exact dates but have to know the sequence
USA and soviet union believed Korea to be insufficient to lead the country themselves after
the surrendering of Japan. split
“China is the bigger brother, north Korea is the little crazy brother.”
Lot of American soldiers at the DMZ to protect the border
Homogeneous ethnic group: not a diverse country, almost only one ethnic group
Hong Kong is a city of China, but many people think it is a separate country
Refined petroleum: both in exports and imports
they use it to trade, they buy it at the lower rate, refine it and sell it at a higher rate
there are different types of the product, they buy raw and then depending on the sector
they refine it differently and then they trade/sell it
1
, very strategic!!
Trade deficit: occurs when a country’s imports exceeds exports (negative balance of trade).
Trade surplus: occurs when a country’s exports exceeds imports (positive balance of trade).
Balanced trade: when a country’s exports and imports are equal. South Korea
China plus one: when you are a company you need a supplier from China (since covid),
since than the world depends too much on China, so they created a plus one (another country
you can rely on, so China is not the only one who hold power (Vietnam, Taiwan)).
EU and South Korea trade, but the relationship is not always good -> because they were
closed from importing due to the mad cow disease
for EU it is a very important to be able to export the beef to South Korea
Korean & Japanese languages have similar sound patterns, grammar and sentence structures.
Main influence China
Before hangul (written language) they wrote in Chinese letters.
South and north Koreans have the same language but different accents
Korea did not have a writing system and that is why they implemented the Chinese one
(Hanja)
Confucianism: system of thought and behaviour origination in ancient China, and is variously
described as a tradition, philosophy or way of life. (how to live your live, lot of hierarchy)
Very old philosophy
1446 – creation of hangul (Korean identity started phosphor)
What is high context? Language is sophisticated, nuanced and layered
Miracle nation: nation that went from extremely poor to extremely rich
Proxy war – conflict where two major powers do not fight each other directly, they fight in
another country, that country is the war zone.
e.g.: Vietnam war, the US and Soviet union had a war with each other but used Vietnam
as a warzone, they did send their military and funding to Vietnam to fight over there.
In the beginning South Korea could get 3 billion USD without repayment (conditional aid,
conditions could be anything in the favour of the USA (military zones, open markets)). Later,
once they realised South Korea would be able to pay again, they switched the grants into
loans with low interest rates.
Before they could get a grant they had to get a democratic governance that was
approved by the USA
After WWII, lot of European countries were dependent on USA, took EU and UK a long time to
repay the loans back to the USA -> also happened with South Korea.
Park Chung-Hee, president (authoritarian) – contributed to how rich South Korea became
today, lot of industrialization under his governance (created industries from scratch to
compete internationally)
5 year economic plan: plan that describes what they are going to do in the next 5
years, how to evolve the economy.
Every rich country today, became rich due to industrialization, pollution.
2
Housing expenditure:
Koreans spend 15% of their gross adjusted disposable income (before taxes) of keeping
a roof over their head. (Belgium average is 20%, reality is way higher)
Average household net adjusted income per capita (per person) is lower than the OECD
average (less disposable income). But the average household net wealth is higher than the
OECD average (higher net wealth.
Disposable income : money you have to spend
Net wealth: assets they own
Even though they own less, they have more assets
Employment rate: 66%
The percentage of labour force that has been unemployed for a year of longer is
currently nearly 0%. (lowest rate in OECD).
In lot of Asian countries people do not have societal security, being unemployed for longer
than a year is not an option because the government does not help to put food on the table. If
they do not work they won’t have money.
In general: unemployment rate is really low
Education: 89% have completed upper education. They score pretty high on ranking.
Life expectancy: 83 years old (above OECD).
82% of people say that they feel safe walking alone at night. Homicide rate is 0.8%.
General satisfaction: 5.8 (bad work-life balance, stress, mental health issues).
Historic facts:
Korea got split up after WWII (1948, establishment of South Korea & North Korea)
DMZ – 1953 (tourist attraction) American soldiers are there.
Agreement to split Korea was proposed by USA (power, they want to be part of
everything)
- Korea was colony of Japan, Japan surrendered during WWII, decided USA won so they
had to decide what to do with Korea, made agreement with the soviet-union that they
could keep the north and USA the south. (thought that Korea was incapable to look
after themselves, so they decided to help them).
Korean people suffered when they were a colony of Japan.
Timeline: do not need to know exact dates but have to know the sequence
USA and soviet union believed Korea to be insufficient to lead the country themselves after
the surrendering of Japan. split
“China is the bigger brother, north Korea is the little crazy brother.”
Lot of American soldiers at the DMZ to protect the border
Homogeneous ethnic group: not a diverse country, almost only one ethnic group
Hong Kong is a city of China, but many people think it is a separate country
Refined petroleum: both in exports and imports
they use it to trade, they buy it at the lower rate, refine it and sell it at a higher rate
there are different types of the product, they buy raw and then depending on the sector
they refine it differently and then they trade/sell it
1
, very strategic!!
Trade deficit: occurs when a country’s imports exceeds exports (negative balance of trade).
Trade surplus: occurs when a country’s exports exceeds imports (positive balance of trade).
Balanced trade: when a country’s exports and imports are equal. South Korea
China plus one: when you are a company you need a supplier from China (since covid),
since than the world depends too much on China, so they created a plus one (another country
you can rely on, so China is not the only one who hold power (Vietnam, Taiwan)).
EU and South Korea trade, but the relationship is not always good -> because they were
closed from importing due to the mad cow disease
for EU it is a very important to be able to export the beef to South Korea
Korean & Japanese languages have similar sound patterns, grammar and sentence structures.
Main influence China
Before hangul (written language) they wrote in Chinese letters.
South and north Koreans have the same language but different accents
Korea did not have a writing system and that is why they implemented the Chinese one
(Hanja)
Confucianism: system of thought and behaviour origination in ancient China, and is variously
described as a tradition, philosophy or way of life. (how to live your live, lot of hierarchy)
Very old philosophy
1446 – creation of hangul (Korean identity started phosphor)
What is high context? Language is sophisticated, nuanced and layered
Miracle nation: nation that went from extremely poor to extremely rich
Proxy war – conflict where two major powers do not fight each other directly, they fight in
another country, that country is the war zone.
e.g.: Vietnam war, the US and Soviet union had a war with each other but used Vietnam
as a warzone, they did send their military and funding to Vietnam to fight over there.
In the beginning South Korea could get 3 billion USD without repayment (conditional aid,
conditions could be anything in the favour of the USA (military zones, open markets)). Later,
once they realised South Korea would be able to pay again, they switched the grants into
loans with low interest rates.
Before they could get a grant they had to get a democratic governance that was
approved by the USA
After WWII, lot of European countries were dependent on USA, took EU and UK a long time to
repay the loans back to the USA -> also happened with South Korea.
Park Chung-Hee, president (authoritarian) – contributed to how rich South Korea became
today, lot of industrialization under his governance (created industries from scratch to
compete internationally)
5 year economic plan: plan that describes what they are going to do in the next 5
years, how to evolve the economy.
Every rich country today, became rich due to industrialization, pollution.
2
