S. Korea has 3rd highest social conflict index among OECD countries

Posted on : 2019-10-06 14:18 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Public attitude regarding government and corporations largely negative
Civic demonstrators hold a candlelight rally for prosecutorial reform near the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul on Sept. 28. (all photos by Lee Jeong-a
Civic demonstrators hold a candlelight rally for prosecutorial reform near the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul on Sept. 28. (all photos by Lee Jeong-a

South Korea is a society that’s rife with conflict. As of 2016, it had the third highest social conflict index among the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), after Mexico and Turkey. Countless conflicts are unavoidable if Korean society is to become sustainable. Opinions differ on the majority of major issues, including the environmental crisis, inequality, and welfare. In order to resolve such conflict, it’s essential to determine what the public is thinking about major controversies in our society.

The Hankyoreh Economy and Society Research Institute had polling organization Global Research carry out a panel-based online poll of 1,000 Korean adults around the country from Sept. 25-27 to determine public attitudes toward the sustainability of Korean society. One of the questions asked by the poll, which had a reliability of 95% and a sample error of ±3.1%, was about the various conflicts in Korean society.

It goes without saying that the hottest controversy in Korea society over the past month was the appointment of Cho Kuk as Minister of Justice. Under any administration, the main points debated during the appointment of senior officials are their morality and competence. But which of those matters most to the public? When asked whether they agree that “the moral failings of a presidential appointee can be compensated by their talent,” 69.5% said they did not. That is, seven out of 10 Koreans think that morality is a key quality for high-ranking officials.

The poll also found that attitudes toward the Korean establishment tend to be quite poor. A whopping 72.1% of respondents disagreed with the statement that “the upper class, socially and financially speaking, deserve their status.”

 staff photographer)
staff photographer)

Which comes first: restoring relations with Japan or dealing with history disputes?

Bringing peace to East Asia also requires that South Koreans resolve their conflict with Japan and improve relations with North Korea. In regard to South Korea-Japan relations, 75.6% of respondents said that resolving historical issues is a necessary condition for improving relations with Japan, more than three times the percentage (24.4%) who said that relations with Japan should be improved first and historical issues dealt with later. Furthermore, 75.9% of respondents were pessimistic about the prospects of finding a good solution to the two countries’ historical dispute.

There was a sharp divide in opinions about unification, which can be described as the central question in inter-Korean relations. Presented with the statement that “unification is necessary despite the cost and the big gap between South and North Korea,” 57.8% of respondents agreed, while 42.2% disagreed. In most age groups, a majority of respondents were in agreement, but more than half (52.9%) of people in their 20s disagreed.

Even though hopes for a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula are higher than ever before, following North Korea-US summits and other developments, many respondents expressed uncertainty about the prospect of inter-Korean relations. When asked about the next 10 years of inter-Korean relations, respondents were most likely to say there won’t be any major changes, at 46%. The next most common response was that relations will get better (43%), while only 10.7% thought that they will get worse.

Civic demonstrators hold a candlelight rally for prosecutorial reform near the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Sept. 28.
Civic demonstrators hold a candlelight rally for prosecutorial reform near the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Sept. 28.

Uneven playing field: what to do with elite high schools?

The sharpest divide was observed in social issues such as raising taxes to fund welfare and the fate of special categories of high school, namely special-purpose high schools and autonomous private high schools. When asked whether they were willing to pay more taxes to raise the level of welfare, a majority of 58.3% said they were not. This opposition was strongest among people in their 20s (60%) and fifties (66.9%), as well as people in the middle class and above (63.2%), who would have to pay the bulk of the taxes. Just a few years ago, polls had found that more than half of Koreans were willing to pay more in taxes to fund welfare, but that support seems to have faltered.

Turning to education, when the poll presented respondents with the statement that “special-purpose high schools and autonomous private high schools are necessary despite the various controversies surrounding them,” disagreement (57.4%) exceeded agreement (42.6%) by 14.8 points. Opposition to special-purpose high schools was highest, by age, among people in their 20s (59.5%) and in their 50s (63.4%) and, by class, among those in the lower middle class and below (64.5%). Special-purpose high schools and autonomous private high schools have higher tuition than regular high schools, and their graduates are more likely to attend the country’s most prestigious universities, giving rise to criticism that they create an uneven playing field.

In the areas of the economy and environment, the poll assessed controversies about the minimum wage and eco-friendly energy. Among respondents, 52.4% disagreed with the statement that “the minimum wage should be increased further even if that causes problems for small business owners,” which was 4.8 percentage points higher than agreement (47.6%). Since Moon Jae-in became president of South Korea, the minimum wage has undergone a double-digit increase two years in a row, by 16.4% and 10.9%, provoking a sharp debate in society.

The poll also included a statement about the issue of nuclear energy, which has been the subject of public debates. The statement that “more eco-friendly energy should be used instead of nuclear power even if the cost of electricity increases somewhat” received much more agreement (65.2%) than disagreement (34.8%).

By Kim So-youn, senior research fellow at the Hankyoreh Economy and Society Research Institute

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

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Most viewed articles