Private Education Cost, Number One In The World And Credit Card Issuance Fourth

Private education cost is number one in the world, divorce rate highly ranked, credit card issuance fourth in world, housing rent and rural living cost eighth.

It was revealed that Korea’s economic and social statistics weren’t as great as it appeared to be.

The Trade Information and Research Service of the Korea International Trade Association revealed on October 12 result of surveys showing that Korea’s annual divorce rate reached 3.0 couples per 1000 people, which is lower than the United States (4.0 per 1000), but higher than Switzerland (2.8 per 1000), Australia (2.6 per 1000), and the United Kingdom (2.6 per 1000).

Private education costs per GDP for children’s education was 2.72 percent and ranked the highest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations. Korea’s costs were higher than the U.S. (1.63 percent), Australia (1.36 percent), and Japan (1.14 percent), with the average rate among OECD member nations only 0.64 percent.

Credit card issuance ranked fourth with 1.887 cards per person among 50 countries ranked. Except for the United Kingdom (2.128), Iceland (2.017), and Taiwan (1.917), Korea ranked higher than other countries including the U.S. (1.747) and Japan (0.693).

$1,580 for apartment rent (on a three bedrooms basis) ranked eighth among 49 countries, and an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent ranked 24th among 30 OECD countries. Transparency and corruption index ranked 18th out of 27 countries with 3.79 score out of 10. Brain drain was relatively high with a rank of ninth among 51 countries. The index of openness to foreign culture was the lowest among 27 countries with 5.26 scores of 10, and it can be interpreted that Korea has the highest cultural exclusiveness.

Mean while, Korea ranked number one among OECD countries regarding subscribers of high speed Internet, 19.2 subscribers per 100 people. Page views per month (number one) and number of Internet users (number two) ranked among the highest. Information index such as personal computer diffusion (seventh), Internet users, and cell phone users were 12th among 50 countries with 80 out of 100.

Chan-Sun Hong hcs@donga.com