South Korea

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South Korea: A lookist society (not the only one)

Oh no, I’m going bald!

Losing one’s hair can be something that changes our appearance, how others view and treat us, and likely how we see ourselves. While that may be a universal experience, a report recently on NPR public radio (also on BBC) about hair loss in Korea indicates that it is a much more significant occurrence there. The President of South Korea wants his country’s national health insurance program to cover hair loss treatment for its citizens. President Lee Jae Myung says this isn’t just a cosmetic issue: he has called it “a matter of survival.” How could that be? No one dies from hair loss, right?

According to Professor S. Heijin Lee (U. of Hawaii), interviewed in the NPR piece,

I think the important part to look at is that he characterizes hair loss as quote-unquote “a matter of survival. ” And this really references this idea that Korea is a very lookist society. That’s not a term that we use too much here in the U.S., but in Korea, it’s very commonplace.

The idea of a “lookist” culture is that looks really matter in that society. While one could argue that such a view is universal (good looking folks get privileged), the situation in South Korea is, according to Professor Lee, that discrimination against those not looking a certain way is allowed and implemented widely. She points to the fact that routinely photographs are included on resumes, so that, she says, “your looks are your credentials”.  Women in South Korea have long complained about that practice and also in general about how Korean society makes extra demands on women in terms of looks. Another reflection of that is the booming industry in Seoul for plastic surgery (centered in the Gangnam district).

Professor Lee claims that the South Korean President is not just looking out for the welfare of men (the ones usually losing their hair). She argues that it is in fact the government of the country that plays a role in shaping beauty expectations that make baldness a “a matter of survival.”  The government doesn’t really want to change the lookist character of Korean society, as “the government benefits from its popular culture industry, which is a purveyor of these beauty standards…K-beauty is, you know, a multibillion-dollar industry.”

K-beauty is the umbrella term for skincare and beauty products, which is a gigantic industry in South Korea. Those products are exported worldwide. Professor Lee points out that it is interesting that the President is not proposing to change any of those areas, “but what he is proposing to do is to cover a very small fragment of a solution”. Of course, beauty products are not alone in terms of popular culture exports from South Korea. K-pop has been a global phenomenon for some times. The tremendously popular movie, KPop Demon Hunters, is a reflection of that.

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Working longer? No thanks!

Commuters in South Korea

This post on work life is a follow-up to the comments on “quiet quitting”. Expectations for how long people should work (hours per week) and how long they should keep working (retirement age) vary substantially from culture to culture. In the US, the 40-hour work week has been legally mandated since 1940. The retirement age varies depending on how old one is; for those born in 1960 or later the age is 67, although it is possible to retire earlier with reduced benefits. Not much has changed in terms of the work timetable in the US for quite some time, although of course the pandemic changed where many people worked. Periodically, there is interest in moving to a four-day work week (with the same pay for 32 hours/week). Recently, for example, there has been some buzz about the recent success in Great Britain of switching to that system in a large variety of companies.

However, elsewhere there are proposals to make significant changes to work life. One that has been in the news recently is the suggestion in South Korea to move to a 69 hour (!) work week (from the current 52, which includes overtime hours). South Korea has long had an expectation that workers put in substantially more work hours through overtime or participating in after-hours work-related social activities. That has been the case as well in other South Asian countries such as Japan. The proposal in South Korea from the country’s president has been met with resistance, especially from younger works who have little interest in conforming to a “live to work” culture.

Meanwhile, in France, the French President has also made a proposal affecting work life, namely that the French will need to work till age 64, rather than the current retirement age of 62. That proposal, now officially promulgated (without a vote in the legislature) has, as in South Korea, led to wide-spread protests. The French, by the way, have a 35 hour work week, a far cry from what’s been proposed for South Korea.

Of course, the actual “on the clock” work time may not be a true reflection of the time devoted to work or at least to be available for work-related tasks. That too varies by culture. In many jobs in the US, for example, it’s routinely expected that employees be reachable electronically after hours. Many people in the US check their messages in the evening and on weekends. That’s quite different from the situation in most European countries, where there is still a separation between work life and home life. The Germans have a proverb: “Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps”. That literally translates as work is work and schnaps is schnaps, the meaning being that when I’m at work I focus on work, but when the work day is over, I’m off the clock and ready to enjoy life (i.e. drink Schnaps, or maybe beer). I know from working with colleagues in Europe not to expect them to answer emails over the weekend, and particularly not when they are on vacation. Maybe that’s a “work to live” outlook that the workabholic US and South Korean cultures could learn from.