OECD Ranks Korea 4th Worst for Social Conflict

Korea is ranked the fourth worst in social conflict among 27 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Samsung Economic Research Institute said yesterday.

In the think tank’s report "Korea’s Social Conflict and Economic Cost," the social conflict index for Korea was 0.71, considerably higher than the organization’s average of 0.44.

Only three member nations -- Turkey (1.2), Poland (0.76) and Slovakia (0.72) -- had higher social conflict indexes than Korea. The U.S. ranked eighth and Japan 10th, ahead of European nations such as Denmark (27th) and Sweden (26th).

The institute calculated the index by dividing the Gini coefficient representing income inequality by the arithmetic mean of the democracy index released by the American Political Science Association and government effectiveness announced by the World Bank.

If the Gini coefficient increases and the democracy index and government effectiveness decrease, the social conflict index goes up.

credo@donga.com