‘Kangaroo tribe’ grows with 66% of young Korean adults dependent on their parents

By Yi Whan-woo

Kim Young-joon, 30, increasingly bickers with his parents over minor issues as the years go by. Despite obtaining a master’s degree, he turned down job offers because he felt they didn’t match his educational level, and has been unemployed since.

“My parents say it is stressful to see me at home day and night, hurting my feelings and making me react sensitively whenever I see them,” Kim says.

“I’m afraid this situation will get worse as I get older, because it gets tougher to land a decent job and become financially self-reliant.”

Kim is among the two-thirds of South Koreans aged between 25 and 34 who either live with their parents, or lack economic independence though they live separately from their parents. They are collectively called the “kangaroo tribe” because, although adults, it is as if they have not left their mother’s pouch yet.

According to a Korea Employment Information Service study, in 2020, 66 per cent of Koreans aged between 25 and 34 belonged to this group.

The rate has hovered in the 60 per cent range for years; it was 62.8 per cent in 2012, 66.6 per cent in 2016 and 68 per cent in 2018.

In 2020, 73.4 per cent had no college diploma, and 69.4 per cent were from Seoul or the greater Seoul area.

Unemployed individuals accounted for 47.4 per cent of the entire kangaroo tribe in 2012. The proportion went up to 66 per cent in 2020.

However, that does not mean all employed children were living independently from their parents.

Some 72.2 per cent of those working temporary jobs, not earning sufficient wages or experiencing other unstable employment circumstances said they had not moved away from their parents.

Some other children who live with their parents well into adulthood said they go to graduate