Koreans take part in more cultural events, study says

Seven out of 10 Koreans attended cultural or artistic events at least once in 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said yesterday.

Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 12, the ministry and the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute surveyed 10,000 Koreans aged 15 and older. The survey, one of the major and most costly studies conducted by the ministry, has been held biennially since 2003. According to the survey, 71.3 percent of Koreans participated in cultural or artistic activities such as watching movies, attending an art exhibition or taking part in a literary session. The figure has risen from 69.6 percent in 2012.

Movies were Koreans’ favorite cultural outing at 65.8 percent, followed by pop concerts (14.4 percent), plays (12.6 percent) and musicals (11.5 percent). The least attended events were dance performances (2.4 percent), classical music concerts (4.9 percent) and traditional arts performances (5.7 percent).

A separate survey on how Koreans spend their non-working hours found that time and money for leisure activities rose from 2012. But the dominant activity was still watching TV, just like two years ago.

The survey found that Koreans have 3.6 hours on a weekday and 5.8 hours each on Saturday and Sunday to entertain themselves, slightly up from two years ago. Also, they had 130,000 won ($120) a month to spend on leisure activities, up 5,000 won from 2012.

Watching TV topped the list at 96.6 percent, followed be surfing the web (30.8 percent), taking a stroll (29.7 percent) and playing games (13.8 percent).

“But leisure activities differed a lot depending on the age group,” Yun So-young of the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute said. “For instance, watching TV was the dominant leisure activity of the older people surveyed.”

BY KIM HYUNG-EUN [hkim@joongang.co.kr]