Seoul/Mokpo, South Korea – In 2018 when Kim Ji-ung lived in the South Korean capital, Seoul, he felt alone all the time. Single and in his early 30s, the salesman spent most of his day at work or holed up in his apartment.
“I pondered about dying during my morning commute,” Kim told Al Jazeera.
“The most difficult thing was that I had no one to talk to. After work, I would be at home scrolling through TV channels or playing video games,” he said.
Finding it difficult to make connections at work, Kim was feeling increasingly desperate and isolated. Then a close friend of his collapsed at their workplace and died.
“That’s when I really started to ask myself, ‘Will I be next?’” he said.
It was then that Kim made one of the toughest decisions of his life – to pack his bags and move away from Seoul, a city of 9.6 million people that offered him the best chance of a career and a stable salary.
The capital’s population, which peaked at 10.97 million in 1992, has been decreasing steadily in recent decades, sparking alarm among officials. The city’s population of those aged 19 to 39 has been on the decline as well, falling from 3.18 million in 2016 to 2.86 million in 2023.
While Seoul continues to draw people with its promise of high-paying corporate jobs, census figures show the city is failing to retain its young population with nearly as many leaving it as moving to it over the past decade.
‘Hell Joseon’
This trend comes despite South Korea’s capital becoming a technological and cultural powerhouse that is consistently ranked among the world’s most exciting cities by international travellers.
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Fortune 500 companies such as LG, Hyundai Motors and SK Group employ thousands of young professionals in their headquarters in the bustling downtown. The ultra-fashionable Gangnam district hosts one of the premier art fairs in the world, Frieze Seoul, and the country’s cosmetics and beauty industry, pop culture and cuisine are popular worldwide.
Seoul’s international allure is also evident in the hip bars, eateries and clubs in the Hongdae and Seongsu neighbourhoods, where foreign tourists flood the streets seven days a week.
But Seoul’s young adults – disillusioned by a housing bubble that has made homes unaffordable and a competitive work culture marked by long hours and low pay – have branded the capital’s work-to-survive lifestyle “Hell Joseon”. The term references the ancient kingdom that was once based where Seoul is today.
“Our society is known for its infamous jobs that force employees to work long hours, cut off the careers of women who give birth and make it hard for men to apply for paternity leave,” said Yoo Hye-jeong of the think tank Korean Peninsula Population Institute for Future.
“Seoul’s abnormally high costs for housing and child education translate to difficulty in creating a stable economic foundation for families,” Yoo said, describing an incompatibility between work and having a family life in the capital.
‘Don’t Worry Village’
For Kim, his chance to move away from Seoul came by coincidence when he spotted an online ad for a getaway programme at Don’t Worry Village.
Located in Mokpo, a city tucked away in the southwestern corner of the country with a population of 210,000 and an abundance of abandoned buildings, the village got its start from another deserter from Seoul, Hong Dong-joo.
After receiving his high school education in Seoul’s upmarket Daechi-dong neighbourhood, Hong was destined to enter a top university in the capital and work for a major corporation – a direct route to the upper echelons of South Korean society.
But when he turned 20, he knew that “life in Seoul, working at a high-paying job was not the life I wanted,” the 38-year-old told Al Jazeera. “I didn’t want to spend long hours at the office every day.” And so, when Hong became a mechanical engineering major at a Seoul university, he did the improbable: He moved away from the city.
He came up with the plan to create Don’t Worry Village after setting up a travel agency and meeting hundreds of young adults who shared stories of isolation and struggling with corporate and social life in Seoul and elsewhere.
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“The blueprint for our village was to make a hometown that would act as a community – something that so many people in our country lack in their lives,” he said.
“In some ways, I was in the business of providing protection for people in our society who needed it.”
‘National emergency’
Analysts describe the situation for many young people in the country as a “national emergency” that is being largely overlooked.
“In the process of becoming a developed nation really fast, our society forgot to establish a support net for our young population,” said Kim Seong-a, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA),
“The side effects of a society going through extreme industrialisation in a very short amount of time was the gradual disappearing roles of families” in the modern lifestyle and work becoming its primary focus, she said.
Findings from a 2021 Pew Research Center survey support her assessment. Participants from 17 advanced economies were asked: “What makes life meaningful?” The most common answer for people from 14 of the 17 nations – which included Japan, the United States and New Zealand – was family. South Korean respondents, however, chose material wellbeing as their top answer. For them, family came in third place.
Kim, the KIHASA researcher, said South Korean society now prioritises “money over people”.
“We’ve seen significant improvements in the country’s GDP, life expectancy and other areas that can be improved through policy changes,” she said. “But social factors like faith in others, trust in society and generosity towards others have relatively been less developed in our country.”
In surveys of satisfaction with life, South Korea ranked 33 among 38 member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), scoring 6.4 on a 10-point scale in 2023. It also has the highest number of suicides among OECD countries with a suicide rate of 24.3 per 100,000 people. Compare that with Lithuania, which came in at a distant second place with 18.5 per 100,000 people.
In the ensuing years, the South Korean suicide rate has only increased, reaching 28.3 per 100,000 people in 2024, a 13-year high.
Young people account for a significant number of the suicides. Of the 14,439 cases of suicide reported last year, 13.4 percent of the cases were people in their 30s.
“In our country, there are many young people who bear all the social risks that they accumulate from failing to get a job, struggling in school and going through family troubles,” Kim Seong-a said.
“They’re by themselves, so there’s a great chance that they can become isolated. They need someone around to talk to or ask for help when they’re going through a setback. This way, they can deal with it or overcome it,” she said.
Official figures, however, show the number of young people living alone in Seoul is on the rise. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, more than a third of the city’s population lives alone with young people accounting for 64 percent of single-person households, up from 51.3 percent a decade ago.
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A recent survey of 3,000 single-person households in the city by The Seoul Institute, a leading think tank, found that 62.1 percent of respondents experienced persistent loneliness. Another 13.6 percent were identified as socially isolated, a term that refers to individuals with no support network during times of emotional distress, physical illness or sudden financial problems.
‘Seoul Without Loneliness’
South Korea’s government is well aware of the issues of social isolation and a punishing work culture in Seoul and has moved to address the issue in recent years.
Last year, it launched its “Seoul Without Loneliness” plan, which is investing 451.3 billion won ($322m) over five years in initiatives such as a 24-hour emotional support hotline and community centres called Seoul Maeum Convenience Stores, where people can seek counselling and drop in for free bowls of ramen noodles.
Authorities in Seoul have also promoted special date nights for singles in the city, and the government has introduced numerous stimulus packages for newlyweds and new parents to address South Korea’s declining birthrate, which is currently ranked the lowest in the world.
The government is also looking for solutions outside Seoul’s gates.
In fact, Don’t Worry Village was one of the first prototypes for inclusive communities outside Seoul that could potentially develop into youth-centred regions that create homes and jobs for young adults while populating rural regions.
With sponsorship from the Ministry of Interior and Safety, applicants to Don’t Worry Village receive financial assistance to relocate to Mokpo and attend workshops organised by Hong on useful skills required in the local community and networking with fellow residents.
Kim Ji-ung, the former salesman from Seoul, attended one such workshop in 2018 and then eventually moved there. After he did so, he said he was surprised by how easy it was to form social connections.
“Because the city is quite small, it’s likely that you’ll meet other young people through one way or another,” Kim said. “People ask favours to each other, and you make friends here by just saying ‘hi’ to them.”
That was such a stark contrast to Seoul, where people do not have time to greet each other and do not want to become involved in other people’s businesses, he said.
Kim worked various jobs in Mokpo until 2022 when he put his university degree to use and started a one-person interior design company. Hong is his neighbour, and the pair frequently grab lunch together. In addition to doing what he loves, Kim said the biggest change he has experienced is starting to enjoy leisure time.
“On random nights, I’ll just go down to the ferry terminal and get on a midnight boat to Jeju Island,” he said. “I’ll just stay there for the morning, but it’s the small things like this that tell me that I’m having a good time here.”
Looking outside Seoul
Hong’s life, too, has changed dramatically.
Back in his days in Seoul, he did not think too much about getting married. But he soon met the woman who became his wife in Mokpo and is now a father as well.
“In Seoul, the individual has to sacrifice so much of their own lives for their companies, to make a living and for the good of society as a whole,” Hong said. “But in Mokpo, I have control over my time. I’m able to do what I want for work, and money is not that intimidating to me any more.”
Two other residents in Don’t Worry Village, husband and wife Park Myung-ho and Kim Min-jee, also gave up lucrative careers in Seoul for what they described as a more “relaxed life” in Mokpo.
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Park, 38, worked for one of South Korea’s biggest arms manufacturers while Kim was an employee at the country’s largest advertising company.
The couple married after meeting in Don’t Worry Village.
“There’s just too much competition in Seoul. It seemed like only people who possessed a lot of capital succeeded in starting a business,” Park said. “As someone who wanted to start my own business, it was more reasonable to look outside of Seoul.”
Park is now the CEO of a local property development company while Kim runs a guesthouse in downtown Mokpo that was developed by her husband’s company.
Kim, 35, also gave birth to a son more than a year ago whom she did not expect to have so soon.
“I always pictured having a child late in my years or being married without kids,” she said.
“Working for a major company meant nearly no time at home and weekends spent in the office. It’s almost impossible to raise kids in Seoul without the help of parents or childcare services, and finding an affordable housing arrangement is even harder,” she said.
‘You’re judged for literally everything’
While Don’t Worry Village has become a prototype for more than 50 youth-centred communities around the country that the government has created in recent years, the reality for young adults moving away from Seoul to live in rural regions has proven to be difficult.
Workplaces, jobs and key infrastructure are still concentrated in Seoul.
And that is why, despite Hong hosting more than 21 workshops for people considering moving to Don’t Worry Village and attracting more than 2,000 visitors, only 20 people have remained there.
The Ministry of Interior and Safety, which helped start the youth villages, said about 10,000 people have participated in workshops at youth-centred communities across the country, but only about 900 ended up moving to them.
For many South Korean youth, starting a second chapter in life outside the country has become increasingly popular.
Brianna Lee is one of the tens of thousands of young adults who apply every year for working holiday visas to live and work abroad for a set time.
“Life in South Korea is just too intensive,” 30-year-old Lee said.
“You’re expected to get a job, get married, buy a house and have an amount of money at a certain age. And you’re judged for literally everything,” she said.
Working as a nurse in Ilsan, a city just north of Seoul, Lee said there is widespread discrimination inside hospitals, where people are critical towards nurses and view them as socially inferior.
“On top of working 11-hour shifts, we would be asked to do tasks that we weren’t required to perform,” she said.
After facing burnout, Lee applied for a working holiday in Canada, where she worked at restaurants and attended classes at an English-language academy for about a year.
Today, she is back home preparing to take a test to become a nurse in the US.
“They pay much better, and people give a lot of respect towards nurses in the US,” Lee said.
“Most importantly, people aren’t nosy,” she said.
“I think people care less about what you do for work and how you choose to live your life there.”