Help the 'kangaroo tribe' stand on their own

According to the latest data from Statistics Korea, 613,000 out of the young generation in their 20s and 30s are just idling away without making any effort to find a job. The number accounts for 4.7 percent of the age group. They increased by 13,000 over the past year. Among them, 428,000 (specifically 269,000 in their 20s and 159,000 in their 30s) depend on their parents for their livelihood. The existence of the so-called “Kangaroo tribe,” who shun economic activities even after finishing regular education, sound loud alarms in our society.

Their parents are increasingly agitated. The increase in the kangaroo tribe basically stems from problems with individuals and families, but it is also linked to the dampened economic vitality. In Japan, decades of economic recession spiked an increase in the kangaroo youths. A considerable portion of them rely on parents for their livelihood into the middle age. It is deplorable that the socially active group have to depend on parents even without taking their first step into society.

The phenomenon primarily results from a lack of jobs for them. In a survey on the young aged between 19 and 34 by the Office for Government Policy Coordination under the Prime Minister’s Office, 57.5 percent of them lived with parents last year and 56.6 percent of them cited a lack of economic independence as the major reason for living with parents. Official employment data on the group is not so bad. 79 percent of those in their 30s were hired and their jobless rate was 2.7 percent.

But such figures do not reflect the reality properly. Most of the age group are actually part-time workers after failing to get a decent job. As of May, 1.04 million youths, or 26 percent of the age group, was working less than 36 hours a week. In other words, one out of four is hired on the short-time or short-term basis.

Because some of them are working for less than 15 hours a week, they have to work at several places at the same time. If they work less than 15 hours a week, they cannot receive severance pay. It suggests the hardship the young generation faces in finding a good job.

The government must squarely face the stark reality where its employment data does not reflect the job crisis accurately at all. The time has come for our society to ask itself if it really provides quality jobs for our youths, before rushing to blame them for not trying to find a full-time job or enjoying unemployment benefits.