Quality of Life That Cannot Keep Up with Economic Development (Part 1)

Quality of Life That Cannot Keep Up with Economic Development (Part 1)

  • 기자명 Daniel Park
  • 입력 2022.05.02 16:57
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[The Public = Daniel Park] 'Quality of life' is sometimes defined as 'objective living conditions and their recognition and evaluation (Statistics Office)', and 'how much human life a citizen of a society or a citizen of a country is leading. It is also defined as an 'indicative indicator (Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication)'. Quality of life can be seen as an index that comprehensively quantifies how much materially affluent and mentally happy people are leading in various aspects such as economy, society, culture, environment, education, and science and technology.

Quality of life has emerged as an important issue when the trend of emphasizing a mentally happy and satisfying human life has become stronger, away from the lifestyle that focused on survival, safety, and material abundance in the past. Compared to the remarkable economic growth achieved through the so-called ‘Miracle on the Han River,’ the perception that the quality of life is relatively poor in Korea is dominant. In 1953, the last year of the Korean War, per capita income was only $67. However, as it succeeded in industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s, it surpassed $1,000 in 1977, $10,000 in 1994, and $20,000 in 2006, 12 years later. In 2018, Korea's per capita national income (GNI) recorded $31,349 (about 34.49 million won), and finally exceeded $30,000.

Korea is the seventh country to join as a country with a population of 50 million or more and a national income of more than $30,000 (30-50 clubs). The club contains only seven countries: USA, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy and Korea. That's something to be proud of. In appearance, it has risen to the ranks of advanced countries in name and reality.

However, despite the remarkable progress in industrialization and democratization, Korean society is facing many new social problems. There are many challenges to be solved, such as low fertility rates, rapid aging, high suicide rates, ideological social conflicts, and a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the quality of life is not high. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched the 'Better Life Initiative' in 2011 to diagnose the quality of life of member countries and areas in need of improvement. The Better Life Index (BLI) has been developed and used. According to this indicator, as shown in , according to the OECD's 2018 BLI index announced in 2020, Korea ranks 30th out of 40 surveyed countries (including 38 OECD member countries and Russia and Brazil), which is the worst. In 2012, it ranked 24th, but it got worse to 30th in 2018, which is evidence that the quality of life in Korea is not improving much.

It is necessary to improve the quality of life of the people and leap to the top in the OECD's BLI evaluation. Improving the quality of life does not come from an increase in national income alone.

The quality of life comes from a life in which both material abundance and spiritual happiness are pursued, and for that purpose, the tendency to view individual 'respect for diversity' as an important value standard is spreading internationally. Diverse utilization of personal health and leisure is also an essential virtue that a society that values ​​quality of life must have, and clean society in terms of environment and energy, and a society that is safe from the risk of crime and disasters, is an important quality of life that guarantees the quality of life. There is no doubt that it is the standard.

There are various ways to measure quality of life internationally, but the most reliable measure is the Better Life Indicator (BLI) hosted by the OECD. The BLI consists of 24 indicators in 11 areas. The first three are related to housing, income, and occupation, which evaluate the material sector, and the next eight are non-material sectors, such as community, education, environment, and civic engagement.

The Public / Daniel Park webmaster@thepublic.kr 

더퍼블릭 / Daniel Park webmaster@thepublic.kr

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