Youth’s Refusal To Accept A Broken Social Contract, Part I

Written By Sheetal Joshi

Abstract

The youth have always been the voice of reason in every generation. The youth of this current generation are some of the most fierce advocates for their causes, but are still excluded from decision making which directly affect their futures. The youth are trying to create change and shed light on the developments within their societies despite political and media pushback. As developed and Western nations get most of the media attention, it becomes harder for developing and non-Western nations to establish their agenda on the global stage. While the Internet and social media help alleviate this biased media reporting, they don’t fully resolve the problem. Social media then becomes crowded with unnecessary information and diversion tactics to steer youth away from the real issues troubling them. Therefore, through this Article, I want to draw attention to youth movements and protests in Asia that are helping to change the fabric of society. For the first article of this four part series, I am focusing on a developed, homogenous, non-Western patriarchal society in East Asia: South Korea.

Keywords: South Korea, Labour Precarity, Kwarosa, Gender Wage Gap, Youth Workforce

Photo Credit: K. K. Yam Amot, Unsplash.

Introduction

The Republic of South Korea, 대한민국 (Daehen Minguk), sits on the lower half of the peninsula in East Asia. South Korea, a dictatorship, after the Korean War (1950 - 1953), struggled financially and economically in the aftermath of the War. General Chung Hee Park, the military-led dictator, in 1961, ‘wanted to transform South Korea from a backward agricultural nation into a modern industrial nation that would provide a decent way of life for its citizens while at the same time defending itself from outside aggression’ (Savada & Shaw, 1990). Hence, in the 1960s, South Korea underwent a rapid industrialization over the course of three decades and became a competitive player in the global arena (Jang 2010). Further, the Park administration decided that the central government would play a direct role in economic development to bring about drastic change to their economy. This resulted in a financial system that incorporated state capitalism and free enterprise. The system was now dominated by ‘chaebols,’ large family-owned conglomerates like Hyundai. Park assumed that its well-educated and highly motivated citizens would provide low-cost, high quality products ready for the market. Industries, like Hyundai, implemented a ‘military-style disciplinary practices,’ that led to irregular jobs, low wages, easy to sack employees and long working days (Savada & Shaw, 1990). 

The Great Workers Struggle 

While being rebuilt, the young South Korean working class was fighting against hardline government policies and laws. In 1987, the country organized itself to protest the dictatorial government and to push for democratisation, which was known as ‘the June Uprising’ (LoC). They demanded constitutional reform, presidential elections, and an end to authoritarian rule. The movement gained more traction from protestors, opposition activists, students, and even white collar workers, shopkeepers and industrial workers; after the death of two students, one from torture in police custody and the other from sexual assault on a female labour activist by a police investigator (Lowry 2008). In its heels, the young working class went on strikes, protested, and used militant tactics to gain higher wages and better working class conditions from July 1987, known as ‘the Great Workers Struggle’. The protests soon erupted in coastal cities and other industrial estates - Ulsan, Pusan Changwong, Masan, Incheon, and Seoul. By August the country was halted by unexpected strikes; over 3,749 worker strikes were conducted by the end of the year and the formation of 4000 labour unions joined by 700,000 workers (Russell 2024). In February 1988, following the presidential elections, the authoritarian rule in South Korea ended, and the country adopted its fifth constitution, becoming the current sixth Republic (The Guardian 2024). The government set up a ‘New Managerial Strategy’ in the mid-1990s, introducing the Human Resources Department in workplaces.

Ten years later, in 1997, the Asian Financial Crisis hit the Korean economy and the IMF issued a 58 billion USD loan to the country, which was repaid within four years on the backs of overworked and underpaid workers after the Won crash (SK currency).  The new repressive labor laws led to an increase of 12-hours in the workweek, prompting more protests; hence, the government withdrew the proposal (Russell 2021). Working hours were at an all-time high, approximately 2,512 hours per year, the highest in OECD countries (2000). Generations of South Koreans had been overworked, but labour precarity prevailed. These long underpaid workweeks had become a norm in the South Korean workplace without much advancement in position or salaries. 

Kwarosa, Idaenam and the Gender-Wage Gap

In 2021, half a million workers walked off their jobs on 20th October in protest against the abolition of irregular work, the nationalisation of key industries, and greater decision-making power for workers in times of crisis. While Korea has the strictest labour laws of developed nations and unemployment rates according to government statistics is at 6%, getting a full-time paid job is insanely competitive and firing an employee after hiring them becomes nearly impossible creating the ‘Korean labour law paradox’, with no new jobs or boost to the labor market and a minimum wage of 8,720 Won/hourly ($5.95). Even with the amended Labour Standards Act (Mar 2018), the maximum legal working hours were reduced from 68-hour workweeks to 52-hour workweeks; workers were still overworked (Koh & Pandurangi 2023). A generation of young workers were overworking themselves to death. The coined “Kwarosa” is a Korean term used for sudden death due to heart failure or a stroke as a result of extreme hard work (Lee 2023). Recently, a 26-year-old worker, Hyo-won Chung, with no pre-existing health conditions, died in Incheon while working an 80-hour work week for the opening of the London Bagel Museum in Incheon (Shin 2025). Kwarosa is a major health concern in South Korea and a human rights issue. According to the OECD, the country is the 5th most overworked country in Asia, with young employees ages 20 to 35 being exhausted, leading to a lower quality of life and declining birth rates. Between 2017 and 2023, 2503 workers have died from Kwarosa.  

The disparity also explicitly exists between young male and female workers with a wage gap as high as 30% in 2025 (Jung 2025). Even with a gender wage gap on top of extremely long working hours and ironclad labour laws, men in their 20s and 30s don’t believe that this gap exists and believe the Labour Ministry and OECD are manipulating statistics for a political agenda. The Korean term for this group, who support right-winged silver generational conservative governments and oppose feminism, is called ‘Idaenam.’ The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family analyzed over 3000 companies, revealing a shocking statistic, where the average annual wage for men was 97.8 million Won ($70, 248) and for women was 67.73 million Won ($46,221). The wage system is deeply patriarchal and misogynistic. Since compulsory military service for able-bodied male citizens provided Idaenam with a boost in the point system in the job market, it was regarded as discriminatory against women and men who couldn’t serve and were abandoned. The Korean Women’s Development Institute discovered that with the loss of the valuable economic benefits for military service men was reduced, men in their 20’s and 30’s felt a sense of ‘unfairness’ as a loss of their privilege of their military service and women who were ‘free to pursue their interests in life’, as the Idaenam who saw compulsory military service as an ‘indicator of masculinity’ (Finlay 2021). About 70% of the Idaenam discount women’s contribution outside of the workplace, like taking care of elders in the family, children, and the household, and denying a gender wage gap, leading to a stronger patriarchal hold over the country, causing anti-feminist backlash. The country has one of the lowest birth rates, which is a direct cause of the gender wage gap and overworking. In 2023, the government sought to disentangle the variables, tweeting, “the linking between the working hour system reform and low birth rates lacks logical justification” (Ministry of Employment and Labour, March 2023). 

Policy Recommendations

South Koreans do not accept this state of affairs. They are fighting to create change in their society as they have suffered immense losses in their standard of living after decades of neoliberal policies. With youth movements like the 4B movement (1): a feminist movement for autonomy in a patriarchal state against traditional expectations (Zimmerman 2025), labour union protests like the Industrial Bank of Korea against wage discrimination (Global union 2025) and Migrant protests for labor rights and end to workplace restrictions (Jo 2024) alongside the protest in December 2024 against corrupt President Yoon Suk Yeol which led to his impeachment, South Korean youth and workers are pushing hard against right-winged leadership and refuse to accept a broken social contract.  To support youth efforts in South Korea, here are some policy recommendations. 

  1. Restructure Working-Time and Employment Regulations Through a “Quality Work Standard” Framework: This can be achieved by reducing the workweek to a legal maximum of 48 hours, introducing substantial penalties for companies violating working-hour caps, and expanding protection for irregular work (part-time jobs, contractors, and temporary contracts). 

  2. Establish a Mandatory Gender Wage Transparency & Equity Enforcement Act: Institutionalize the mandatory annual gender-disaggregated salary audits for all companies with 100+ employees, publicly available and reviewed by an independent Equal Pay Commission, subsidize small companies implementing family-friendly policies and establish penalties required action plans for firms with persistent wage gaps exceeding a set threshold (e.g., 5–10%).

These recommendations can support youth-led movements in South Korea and help reduce Kwarosa, extreme burnout, encourage companies to innovate rather than rely on exhausting human labour, and could raise female labour-force participation and improve birth rate sustainability in the long run.


  1. 4B movement: “bi” (meaning “no”): bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisekseu (no sex) emerged in 2015 in South Korea inspired from ‘escape the corset’ movement and #MeToo movement


References

Sheetal Joshi

Sheetal Joshi is a recent graduate with a passion for working in the human rights field. She has been living abroad for almost five years which is the same number of languages she speaks. She is originally from Mumbai, India, and is currently based in Brussels, Belgium.

She holds a Distinction Honours M.A. in Political Strategy and Communication with a European Union External Relations specialization from the University of Kent and a Cum Laude Honours B.A. in Global Studies with an International Security and Conflict specialization from the University of South Carolina. She has previous experience in Research, Advocacy, Foreign Policy, Security Policy and Conflict Resolution. She is knowledgeable in language rights & conflict, humanitarian aid, crisis communication, and post-colonialism.

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CSW70 Brief - From Commitments to Accountability: Pathways from a Youth and Women-led Decolonial Perspective