Nearly 75 percent of Koreans considered themselves middle class in 1989, a year after the country hosted the Summer Olympic Games in Seoul. The number plummeted to 20.2 percent last year, according to government surveys.

Over the cited period, Korea’s per capita gross national income jumped from about $5,000 to $26,000.

This wide discrepancy between a falling perception of socioeconomic class and rising income is rarely found in other major advanced countries.

A 2013 survey showed Koreans have unrealistically high standards of what it means to belong to the middle class. Most respondents said a household could be considered middle class if its assets and annual income exceed 1 billion won ($948,000) and 70 million won, respectively. In the previous year, households that fell in these categories accounted for only 4.2 percent and 6.5 percent of the total. Average household assets stood at 262 million won.

Due to this unrealistic perception, most Koreans have a severe feeling of relative deprivation. Possibly related to this negative sentiment, the country has the highest suicide rate and the smallest portion of people satisfied with their lives among the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In a recently published book on conflict between socioeconomic classes, a local professor described this phenomenon as a “paradox of affluence.” In the late 1980s, members of the baby-boomer generation born after the 1950-53 Korean War were content with their rapidly improving living standards. But younger generations have been forced into fierce competition to land desirable jobs, with many baby-boomer householders having suffered from financial collapse in the wake of the foreign exchange crisis that hit the nation in the late 1990s. A study cited in the book, coauthored by five scholars, showed nearly 80 percent of Koreans perceived their class status had dropped over the past five years.

Left unaddressed, this sentiment is likely to deepen social instability and exacerbate political conflict. Boosting economic growth may be an effective way to ease the problem. But we cannot expect the Korean economy to continue to grow at a fast pace as its growth potential is forecast to weaken in the coming decades. Politicians in rival parties should cooperate in working out a balanced and comprehensive set of policies to prevent Korean society from being torn apart.