Tough Korea: Rising Unemployment and Inflation... Low Welfare Spending and High Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Statistics Korea Releases 'Korea's Sustainable Development Goals Implementation Report 2021'
Reviewing 2030 UN Targets... Public Social Welfare Expenditure Ranks 4th from Bottom Among OECD Countries

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] South Korea's welfare expenditure is smaller than that of advanced countries, while its greenhouse gas emissions are higher. Due to COVID-19, unemployment rates and food price indices are rising.

On the 1st, Statistics Korea published the "Korea Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Implementation Report 2021" containing these findings. Based on the United Nations (UN) SDGs indicators, it compared and analyzed South Korea's status with the world. This year, the analysis focused mainly on indicators reflecting the impact of COVID-19. The SDGs refer to 17 policy goals agreed upon at the UN General Assembly to be jointly achieved by 2030. Data was extracted under the keywords "People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership."

According to the report, South Korea's public social welfare expenditure was 12.2% in 2019, ranking 28th among 31 OECD member countries surveyed. This showed a clear gap compared to 1st place France at 31% and 2nd place Finland at 29.1%. However, the growth rate was fast, increasing by 9.6 percentage points from 2.6% in 1990.

Environmental indicators such as waste and greenhouse gases worsened. The total domestic waste generation in 2019 averaged 497,238 tons per day, a 35.5% increase from 366,921 tons in 2009. Particularly, South Korea's total greenhouse gas emissions per GDP was 0.387 kgCO2-eq/dollar, ranking 6th highest among 33 countries according to OECD standards. "CO2-eq" refers to the unit representing greenhouse gas emissions converted into the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, the representative greenhouse gas. In other words, producing one dollar of gross domestic product (GDP) emits 0.387 units of carbon dioxide.

On the other hand, the share of renewable energy sources, considered eco-friendly energy such as solar and wind power, was 1.9% in 2018, the lowest among 37 OECD countries.

Although South Korea established the "K-quarantine" system, the data also proved that it could not avoid the impact of COVID-19. In particular, the unemployment rate soared to 4.0% in 2020. It had been 3.7% in 2005 and 2010, 3.6% in 2015, 3.8% in 2019, and then rose sharply to 4.0% in 2020. The consumer price index for agricultural, livestock, and fishery products rose compared to the previous year, especially surging in September (13.5%) and October (13.3%). This was due to the overlap of natural disasters such as monsoons and typhoons with COVID-19.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.