People may imagine about being born in another country. Korea is ranked top among OECD countries in the rate of people abandoning their nationality. What’s the reason? Then, what disadvantages will Korea get from it? If you are curious about them, focus on this article. -Ed.

No.1 country in the rate of citizens abandoning nationality
 
  The 2014 rate of Koreans abandoning their nationality was 1,680 per 100,000 people, which is overwhelmingly higher than other countries. Compared to other countries, the United States rate was 28 per 100,000, Japan’s was 89 per 100,000, and Singapore’s rate was 431 per 100,000.
  Why is the rate of Koreans abandoning their nationality so high? There are complicated reasons, but several reasons are considered important. One of the reasons is an influence of huge accidents like the Sewol Ferry. There were similar events in the past, such as the West Sea Ferry accident and the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store. During the 3 years after those accidents, the number of emigrants increased from 14,477 to 15,917. Also, at the time of the IMF financial crisis, the number of emigrants increased from 12,484 to 13,974.
  Another reason is that people are willing to emigrate to developed countries. For 4 years(2003 to 2007), the most popular countries for emigration from Korea were Japan and U.S.A. The sum of Koreans who emigrated to these countries was over 80% of all Korean emigration. From this, we can predict that Koreans who emigrate to other countries are leaving Korea to live better lives in developed countries. However, this cannot be considered as the main reason for abandoning Korean nationality because people should know that Koreans living abroad are also included in the emigrating population.
  Another reason is because people think Korea is the hard place to live. The prices of products are rising, and finding jobs is becoming harder, but welfare is still the same as before. According to OECD statistics, Korea has the highest suicide rate, highest working time rate, highest university tuition rate, and highest household debt rate. These rates indicate how hard it is to live in Korea.

CBNU students’ thoughts about abandoning nationality

  What do CBNU students think about abandoning nationality? CBT surveyed CBNU students and asked if they are satisfied living in Korea. Among 200 people, 95 people(47.5%) said they want to give up their Korea nationality and emigrate to other countries. 105 people(52.5%) said they don’t want to give up their Korean nationality. There are slightly more people who want to keep their nationality than people who want to give up their nationality.
  About 41.5% of 200 people said that they are satisfied with the fact that they are Korean, but about 40% of people said that they are indifferent, and about 18.5% people said that they aren’t satisfied with their Korean nationality. People who want to give up Korean nationality responded that they hate Korea’s competitive and cramming education, its excessive academic elitism and the difficulty in finding work. Also, unstable security, political corruption, small welfare benefits, and military conscription were other reasons.
  Because this survey was given to university students, the reasons why they want to leave Korea were related to education and employment.
  About 36% of people who answered that they want to keep their Korean nationality responded that they will stay in Korea because they were born in Korea. There were other reasons such as remaining family and friends, familiarity with Korea, and a lack of confidence to adapt to a foreign country.

Problems and solutions

  The more people abandon their nationality, the more population outflow happens. Korea has a problem of a low birthrate, so it makes the problem worse. Also, there are many experts who abandon their nationality. Therefore, it’s a big problem in Korea.
  When people talk about abandoning nationality, they mainly mention the evasion of military service. It is an inevitable problem because Korea has adopted the draft system. Although the government tries to lower the rate of abandoning nationality, it couldn’t modify the draft system because of fairness and public opinions.
  A solution which Korea prepared to lower the rate of abandoning nationality was permission of dual nationality. Dual nationality means that people have two or more nationalities. Korea admitted dual nationality in 2010 for the first time. It was made to improve national competitiveness by attracting foreign experts and preventing Korean experts from abandoning nationality.
  However, actually, dual nationality in Korea is very restrictive because of people’s negative views about it. Korea only permits innate dual nationality. Innate dual nationality is given when people are born in another country, but if birth tourism is used to gain the innate dual nationality, innate dual nationality is not permitted by the Korean government.

Case of another country

  In France, the rate of abandoning nationality is very low. However, this doesn’t mean that French patriotism and satisfaction of their country is high. France has an active critical culture; patriotism is regarded as blind emotion and because of their culture, satisfaction about their country can naturally fluctuate. Nevertheless, the reason for the low rate of abandoning nationality is their trust in the country and society. They know their country has a lot of problems and criticize it, but they regard their country as a community and they trust their country.
  It feels new and fresh for us that the French people feel proud that they are French even though they know that their country has lots of problems. Considering different concepts of other countries, the case of France would be a good reference.
  Abandoning nationality will be beneficial for neither the people who are leaving nor the people who are remaining. Then how about making a country where people don’t want to leave and where people who already emigrated want to come back home?

By Shin So-hyeon
sh36@cbnu.ac.kr