Political divide greater source of social conflict than wealth gap: report

Over half of foreign residents aged 20-39

More than four in five Koreans said conflict between the political left and right is the greatest threat to social cohesion, whereas about three in four cited socioeconomic inequality as the source of an irreconcilable rift, data showed Tuesday.

Propelling the ideology-perpetuated divide is the failure of politics, as illustrated by growing hate-filled rhetoric of “us vs. them,” embraced by most politicians and pundits.

Their respective short-term objectives of winning a National Assembly seat and expanding their online followings almost always come at the expense of voters, who are more attuned to the voices of fearmongering than of unity before the elections.

According to a survey from Statistics Korea of 8,000 men and women aged 19 and older, the most widespread social conflict cited last year was the one between conservatives and liberals (82.9 percent). It was followed by the income gap (76.1 percent) and management-workers conflicts (68.9 percent).

Gender divide was the least pronounced source of conflict, with 42.2 percent of the respondents agreeing, followed by religion (42.3 percent) and the generation gap (55.2 percent).

Kim Tae-gi, a former economics professor at Dankook University, said politics should be a vehicle for unity, not divisiveness.

“Politicians and online political commentators resort to a concerning degree of vitriol, fully capitalizing on their influence over their voter bases and viewerships,” he said.

Fear or hatred can be a far greater driver for turning up at the polls than indifference or a sense of mild disappointment, he added.

“They ride on the collective outcome of emotionally charged thinking tied closely to the act of voting. They gain popularity mostly because they say what their voters or viewers want to hear. More efforts are needed to make political discourse about promoting social cohesion,” he said.

Experts say continued discussion-oriented efforts to bolstering social capital will be the only solution. Otherwise, bigoted violence would prevail in the grip of destructive and vile political discourse.

The divisive nature also undermines the growth of the economy, as evidenced by Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry data on causal relationships between trust-based social capital and expansion of businesses.

The stronger the basis for mutual trust in a society, the lower the degree of regulations, the data showed. This in turn fortifies the business environment to be more conducive to stable long-term investments, a key factor for robust economic growth.

OECD data on 29 member states in the period between 2009 and 2013 showed per capita GDP of a country had a negative correlation with the degree of social conflict.

The Statistics Korea survey also showed that less than three in four Koreans said they were satisfied with their lives, down 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier when the figure came to 75.4 percent.

Over two-thirds, or 68.4 percent, said they found their work meaningful, down 4.2 percentage points from 72.6 percent the previous year. The figure falling below 70 percent was a first since 2020.

The number of foreign residents is inching up, a noteworthy development in a country defined by the world’s lowest fertility rate of 0.72 last year. It was down further from 0.78 a year earlier and an all-time low in related data the agency has been compiling since 1970.

The number of newborns came to 230,000 last year, half of 2012’s 485,000.

The study showed almost one in two citizens is expected to be aged 65 and older in 2072.

The number of foreign nationals staying on long-term visas stood at 1.69 million as of 2022. The figure was an increase from 1.57 million in 2021 and 1.61 million in 2020.

The number of registered foreign residents totaled 1.19 million last year. The figures between 2020 and 2021 were limited to 1.09 million, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

All age groups saw increases in the number of registered foreign residents except the 50-59 age group.

The 20-29 age group added 350,000 foreign residents, while the number for the 30-39 age group came to 339,000.