1 in 5 NK defectors see household debt top 100m won

Deck: Outstanding debt doubles in a year among defectors in 50s

[News Focus]

By Kim Yon-se

SEJONG -- The burden of financial liabilities held by North Korean refugees was found to have aggravated, while their employment conditions were worse than the average of ordinary South Koreans, state data showed.
According to Statistics Korea and the Korea Hana Foundation, the defectors from the North saw their outstanding debt per household reach an average of 61.56 million won ($51,400) as of 2019, marking an all-time high since the nation started compiling relevant data.
Their average household debt increased by 13.8 percent (8.52 million won) from the previous year. Compared to the figure of 45.55 million won for 2017, their average household debt had climbed by 26 percent (16.01 million won) in only two years.
The figure for the group is inching closer to the average household debt held by all South Koreans (including refugees), which has posted relatively meager growth over the past few years -- 70.9 million won in 2017, 76.6 million won in 2018 and 79.1 million won in 2019.
Further, the percentage of defector households with outstanding debt worth 100 million won or more came to 19.9 percent, up 3.8 percentage points in the corresponding two-year period, from 16.1 percent in 2017.
This means that 1 out of every 5 refugees are saddled with household debt of 100 million won or more as of last year.
The portion of households whose debt was at least 50 million won and under 100 million won was 17.4 percent, while the figure for households whose debt ranged between 20 million and 50 million won was 29.1 percent.
By generation, those in their 50s topped the list as their outstanding household debt posted 78.69 million won, followed by those in their 30s at 62.56 million won, those in their 40s with 62.27 million won and those aged 15-19 with 55.84 million won.
As a noteworthy point, given that those in their 50s saw their debt surge 109 percent in only a year from 37.64 million won in 2018, the age group is estimated to have been active in purchasing apartments via mortgages, launching small businesses or sharply increasing education costs for their children.
The job market is also not favorable to defectors. While South Korea has been posting quite low employment rates among the 37 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the figure further goes down when it comes to refugees from North Korea.
The defectors in the South posted a 58.2 percent employment rate in 2019, which stayed under the average (60.8 percent) of all Koreans for the corresponding year, according to Statistics Korea.
While the jobless rate for all Koreans stood at 3.4 percent as of December 2019, the figure for defectors reached 6.3 percent.
Data suggests that those whose residing period in the South was less than three years were having difficulty with jobs. The employment rate for those with three-year careers here stayed at 48.2 percent with the jobless rate posting 11.8 percent.
Jobless rates were also high among those who did not graduate college or university, with 7.2 percent for those whose highest education level was middle or high school.
The average monthly wage earned by salaried people from the North stood at 2.04 million won last year.
With the country’s per capita gross national income of $32,047 -- 37.33 million won a year and 3.11 million won a month -- last year, the income for defectors was less by about 1 million won.
Moreover, 49.9 percent of salaried workers from the North were paid less than 2 million won a month in 2019.
The portion of those who earned 1.5 million won or over, but less than 2 million won was 26 percent, followed by 1 million-1.5 million won with 12.9 percent, 500,000-1 million won with 7.9 percent and less than 500,000 at 3.1 percent.
On a cumulative basis, the tally for North Korean refugees has approached 35,000, with more than 24,000 of them women.
(kys@heraldcorp.com)

Caption: Refugees from North Korea are seen at the Korea Hana Foundation, an entity in the South where they stay before entering the society. (Reuters)