Older voters are outnumbered, underrepresented in Congress, and ignored in election campaigns. Young South Koreans say the political system is failing them, and some are fighting back ahead of Wednesday's election.
According to official data, this vote to elect 300 members of the National Assembly will be the first in South Korean history where voters over the age of 60 outnumber those in their 20s and 30s.
This is partly due to demographics. South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, a rapidly aging population, and marriages have plummeted for decades, with single-person households now the norm.
Elderly people are also taking the lead in politics. More than 75% of the current members of the Diet are men over the age of 50. Only 5.6% of candidates in Wednesday's election are under 40.
Lee Min-ji, 23, a student at the Korea University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, spent several weeks before the election creating hand-painted posters to encourage young people to vote.
Like many young South Koreans, she cited a series of recent scandals as evidence that the government is abandoning young people. These include the 2022 Halloween stampede in Itaewon that killed more than 150 people, mostly young people, and was blamed on a series of oversights by authorities.
“Young people are dying every day, and the problem is that[we]don't get married, we don't have children,” one poster said, adding that authorities have been saying for decades that serious They argued that young people were being unfairly blamed for the demographic crisis. Policy formulation underway.
“I don't know when they will stop calling it a problem that[babies]aren't being born when they can't even protect children and young people who are still alive,” she told AFP.
-Youth vote? –
As in many countries, young voter turnout is low in South Korea. According to official statistics, only 57.9% of voters in their 20s and 30s voted in the last general election in 2020, compared to 79.3% of voters in their 60s and 70s.
According to the latest Korea Gallup poll, just over 50% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 said they intended to vote in Wednesday's general election “no matter what.”
Experts say this is linked to growing dissatisfaction among young people.
While South Korea is considered a global cultural powerhouse and is known for its strong semiconductor exports, domestically young people are facing hardships due to fierce competition in education, fewer job opportunities, and soaring housing costs.
According to official statistics, the leading cause of death for Koreans aged 10 to 39 is suicide.
Ki-wook Shin, a professor of sociology at Stanford University, said the older establishment “doesn't really understand the precarious situation of young people,” which is the main reason for the escalation of “intergenerational conflict.” He said that.
As countries age, older people become increasingly politically important. Linda Hasnuma, a political scientist at Temple University, told AFP that this “will continue to drive young people away from politics and voting.”
“Many already feel that substantive change is not possible with the existing system,” she says.
“As older voters turn out to vote, we may see policies that overrepresent their interests at the expense of younger voters.”
~ “Politics that kills people” ~
Yoo Jeong, 26, who lost her sister in the Itaewon riots, believes that many young people are too stressed and overworked to participate in politics, even though the existing system is failing them. I was feeling it.
Young-joo, the late sister, had to work multiple part-time jobs on just six hours of sleep a day while preparing for school and work.
“'Politics that kills people' is not a distant concept. Disasters… happen when (states) fail to do what they are supposed to do,” Yu told AFP.
The state's failure to protect a 20-year-old Marine in mandatory military service who died during a flood relief operation last year was also featured in a campaign poster created by student activists. According to reports, he was not provided with a life jacket.
One poster urging young people to vote said: “When you are called up (for military service), you are a son of the people. When you are given responsibility, you say, 'Who are you?'” .
Lee Cheol-bin, 30, lost his life's savings in the Jeonse housing scam, which unfairly harmed young people and led to at least four suicides last year. He urged young people to vote, even if they felt “erased” by politics as usual.
“The reason we have to vote despite everything… is because we can't live like this,” he said at an event in Seoul aimed at encouraging young people to vote.
“It doesn’t make sense for us to live a life where we could literally disappear at any moment.”
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