Korea may be the only country that by means of human resources alone has risen from among the world’s poorest in the mid-20th century to a 21st-century advanced economy complete with a high level of democratization. The underside, however, is that it is the only country with a total fertility rate of below 1.0, with its suicide rate topping all other OECD countries’. Furthermore, Korea from the mid-2010s onward has been ranked low in the range of 50~60 among some 150 countries listed on the UN World Happiness Index, belying its high ranking in nominal GDP (10th~14th). This study attempts to trace this “failure within success” to life-course “inequality” and the subsequent “insecurity” in living conditions. The reason why this study focuses on inequality is that, because the suicide rate has trended in sync with the inequality trajectory and fertility rates have shown a negative relationship with the inequality trends, it is likely that there is a close relationship between socioeconomic inequalities and social reproduction and sustainability. This study looks at trends in poverty and equality before and after the covid-19 pandemic and draws thereby some policy implications. The data used in this study come from two sources: Statistics Korea’s Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions (for years 2012~2020) and KIHASA’s Survey of the Impact of Covid-19 and the Effect of Government Transfers. Income as estimated in the Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions is based on the year preceding each survey year, while asset estimates are based on each survey year. The Survey of the Impact of Covid-19 and the Effect of Government Transfers was conducted fact-to-face from October to November 2020 of a total of 4,991 households across the country. Income here means equivalized per capita income; assets are unequivalized net household assets. The poverty rate here refers to the percentage of people living in households on less than 50 percent of the median income, and inequality is measured in the Gini coefficient.
