[Opinion] Kangaroo Generation

Right after the financial crisis in 1988, a play called “Mr. Kangaroo” was quite popular. This play portrays the Kangaroo generation who live off their parents after college graduation and failing several entrance exams for companies and they wander around their old college towns where their friends still study. The same year, “L’Express,” a French current affair weekly, reported that 80 percent of the youth in their 20s in France, 60 percent of those between 25- to 30-years-old in Spain and 45 percent of 23- and 24-year-olds in Germany were still dependent on their parents, thus naming them the “Kangaroo Generation.” Now I think back, those days were better. Because we believed that the wriggling of the Kangaroo Generation was not a national problem but an international phenomenon and that they will go extinct naturally as soon as the economy revives.

However, the survival of the Kangaroo Generation goes on. After a survey that found that 48 percent of the youth in their 20s were financially dependent on their parents, the average age of people with college degrees who have been hired became 15 months older, according to research. After the financial crisis, the dependence on parents was inevitable since there were no jobs even with the college degree, but now they depend on their parents willingly under the cause of preparation for job seeking and delay their graduation. But, is that all to their reasons with the economic difficulties and the high rate of unemployment?

Let us look at the inside of the Kangaroo Generation: They are full of fears. They are not used to doing things for themselves with their hands and heads since they were always told to do something since their early childhood, including “to always study.” Raised in material affluence, they lack the will to overcome difficulties. They do not want to live as diligently as their parents did, and they do not like small companies. The college setting was a huge greenhouse to them. With their obsession for enhancing their qualifications, they willingly avoid graduation, transfer to other schools, and go to graduate schools. Without even trying to face the world, they are sharpening their sword for that long until their day finally comes along.

The blame also goes to the older generation who call themselves “unfortunate.” Their over-protection in raising their children and the failing governmental policies for the economy played a role. But, kangaroos will feel sorry for us to use their name to call such a generation. A kangaroo lives only 12 to 16 years and lets go of their kids once they are six to 12 months old from their pouch. For their human counterparts, they are getting independent when they are only six or seven years old. What if Kangaroos call their kids that insist on staying with their mom call “the humans?”

Editorial Writer Kim Soon-duk, yuri@donga.com