The Meaning of Life and Values in Northeast Asia

Of the 17 countries with advanced economies, it was only in South Korea that ‘material abundance’ ranked first. In most of the other countries, ‘family’ ranked first. The possible reasons for this became the topic of heated debate within South Korea’s academic community. It was pointed out, in particular, that the design of the survey (in which people’s subjective responses were later coded, rather than presenting multiple-choice questions) may have led to misrepresentation or distortion of respondents’ subjective meanings in the data processing stage.

In an attempt to further explore the issue of how the meaning of life may be perceived differently according to country or region, researchers at Seoul National University Asia Center carried out another survey on values, entitled “Social Values Survey in Asian Cities.” In this survey, the residents of 15 major cities (12 of which were located in Asia) were asked a series of questions relating to social values and their contribution to one’s meaning of life. 

This edition of News from Northeast Asia presents the results and insights obtained from the “Social Values Survey in Asian Cities.” The overall design of the survey – along with the analytical methods used and some preliminary interpretations regarding what values are believed to be essential to the meaning of life in Asia’s cities – are introduced by Dong-Kyun Im, of the Department of Sociology at Seoul National University, in “Social Values Survey in Asian Cities – Analysis of the Results on Values and the Meaning of Life.” In “Meritocracy in Asia: Beliefs in Its Ideals and Reality, and Life Satisfaction,” Yong Kyun Kim, of the Department of Political Science & International Relations at Seoul National University, examines how the ideal and reality of meritocracy, as well as the dissonance between the two, have an impact on life satisfaction for Asia’s urban residents. Finally, Jungwon Huh, based at Seoul National University Asia Center, uses the survey results to shed light on how young adults residing in Seoul regard family and children in a way that is strikingly different from those residing in cities outside of Northeast Asia.

A vast amount of data was obtained from the 2022 “Social Values Survey in Asian Cities,” and the three pieces comprising this edition represent the preliminary results of analysis undertaken on just a fraction of this data. Researchers affiliated with Seoul National University Asia Center aim to carry out further in-depth analysis on the survey data to provide new insights on the topic of values for Northeast Asia, and indeed all of Asia, in the future. 

Ilhong Ko, HK Research Professor, Seoul National University Asia Center, mahari95@snu.ac.kr