[Edaily Reporter Kim Yu-seong ] One of the concerns facing the Lee Jae-myung administration is the decline in support among young people. According to Gallup Korea’s presidential job approval ratings, the approval rating among men in their 30s stood at 62% in the consolidated survey covering the first three weeks of July 2025—shortly after the president took office—but dropped to 23% in the consolidated survey covering the first three weeks of September 2026. During the same period, the approval rating among women in their 30s also fell from 69% to 43%. While the overall approval rating dropped from 64% to 38%, a significant shift was also evident among those in their 30s.
While various interpretations of this trend have emerged, it is also worth examining from the perspective of “relative deprivation.” This implies that today’s 30-somethings may feel they are at a disadvantage compared to previous generations. One example is the financial burden of purchasing an apartment in Seoul. Based on 2000 data, the price of a 30-pyeong apartment was 9.4 times the average annualized wage for those aged 30–34 at the time. Calculated using a separate standard, the average price of an apartment in Seoul as of September 2026 was 31.9 times the average annualized wage for those aged 30–34 in 2025.
(Since these two figures are based on different methods of calculating housing prices—meaning the financial burden of purchasing a home of the same size has increased from about 10 years to 32 years—they cannot be directly compared.)
◇What if you saved every penny of your salary?
To examine the burden of purchasing an apartment in Seoul across different generations, we borrowed the concept of the PIR (Price-to-Income Ratio). This calculation shows how many years’ worth of annual income a home costs. Assuming that home prices and income remain constant and that one saves their entire income, that number can be interpreted as the number of “years.” This is not intended to predict the actual time required to purchase a home but was used as a reference value derived from combining different data sets.
For personal income, we used wage data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, as published in the Korea Labor Institute’s “KLI Labor Statistics.” We divided the age groups into 30–34 and 35–39, and converted total monthly wages into annual wages by multiplying them by 12. The data series used for comparison consists of regular employees at businesses with 10 or more workers in the non-agricultural sector nationwide. (This does not represent the income of all people in their 30s or the wages of only those just entering the workforce.)
Past housing prices were calculated using publicly available data for each year, specifically the price per pyeong or “the price per 3.3 square meters multiplied by 30.” The table below compares wages and the converted housing prices for each year.
The calculations show that in 1990, the housing price equivalent was 14 years’ worth of the annualized wages of workers aged 30–34 at the time. This figure is based on the assumption that not a single penny is spent on taxes or living expenses, and that both housing prices and income remain constant. Using the same standard, the figure for those aged 35–39 is 12.9 years’ worth.
These figures decline in the data from 2000, following the foreign exchange crisis. For those aged 30–34, the figure was calculated at 9.4 years’ worth, and for those aged 35–39, at 8.2 years’ worth. People in their 30s at that time were generally born in the 1960s, meaning they will be in their late 50s to mid-60s in 2026.
These reference figures highlight the importance of the timing of one’s entry into the housing market. According to the data used in the calculations, wage growth in 2000 exceeded the growth in housing prices (in wage-equivalent terms) compared to 1990.
However, because the aggregation criteria for the price data differ, this should not be interpreted as a precise comparison of long-term growth rates. Even so, today’s people in their 30s might envy the lower housing price-to-income ratios of the past. According to 2020 data, the ratio for those aged 30–34 was 24.9.
For this year, 2026, we examined the data using a separate benchmark. Dividing the average sales price of an apartment in Seoul in September 2026—1.62469 billion won, as reported by KB Real Estate—by the annualized wage of 50.904 million won for those aged 30–34 in 2025 yields a ratio of 31.9. This means that, based on current standards, people in their 30s would have to save every penny for a full 30 years to buy an apartment in Seoul.
◇Relative Deprivation? Economic Deprivation!
This analysis alone cannot explain the decline in support among young people. Nor does it directly measure the sense of relative deprivation itself. Its significance lies in quantitatively examining the gap between housing prices and income—a gap that could underlie such feelings.
Therefore, changes in the political attitudes of people in their 30s should not be explained solely as a “strengthening of right-wing leanings” or “ignorance of history.” It is also necessary to examine the economic conditions they face. From this perspective, it is possible that some young people view the current ruling party as a group representing the vested interests and those who have benefited from the times.
In conclusion, apartments in Seoul may feel like an impregnable fortress to today’s people in their 30s. These calculations also reveal that it is a significant financial burden to purchase an average-priced apartment in Seoul on an average wage alone. The dilemma of whether to give up on buying a home in Seoul must also be examined in this context.
That said, can we really say that the lives of those who were in their 30s in 2000—now in their late 50s to mid-60s—were comfortable and prosperous? They, too, went through the foreign exchange crisis and the IMF bailout period, experiencing the severe employment freeze of the late 1990s. Even within the same generation, circumstances varied depending on employment status, income, and home ownership. This is why, while examining the differences in when they entered the housing market, we must not categorize an entire generation as either beneficiaries or victims.
◇ Analysis Method and Scope of Interpretation
This analysis compares the price-to-income ratio (PIR) by age group. Although the PIR formula was applied, this is not an official PIR statistic. Nor is it a regression analysis, a causal analysis, or a cohort analysis tracking the same birth cohort.
Individual wages were based on regular employees at businesses with 10 or more workers in the non-agricultural sector nationwide. The total monthly wages in the raw data consist of fixed pay, overtime pay, and “one-twelfth of the previous year’s annual special pay.” The annualized amount—calculated by multiplying this figure by 12—may differ from the total amount of wages actually received in that year.
We then calculated the price-to-wage ratio by dividing housing prices by the annualized wages. The four past time points are 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, respectively; these are not averages for the entire decade. Due to differences in the sources and aggregation methods of the price data, they are presented as reference values for each specific year. For the 2026 comparison, we used the average price of apartments across all sizes as of September and the 2025 wage data.
For reference, the PIR published by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in its Housing Conditions Survey is a separate indicator that uses home prices and household income for owner-occupied households. The National Indicator System specifies that it is calculated based on the median values of home prices and annual household income.
