“Population may decrease, but wealth may increase!”
A new population strategy that connects "A Determined Future" and "Coexistence of the Future Population"

Population is the most realistic basis for imagining the future and the foundation for strategies to expand wealth in uncertain times.
But so far we have been accustomed to thinking of population only in terms of crisis.
This book teaches us how to read population in the language of 'wealth'.
Professor Cho Young-tae, a leading demographer in Korea, goes beyond the discourse of the "birth rate crisis" facing Korea and presents evidence that changes in population structure create new wealth opportunities.
In doing so, we propose a population strategy that creates better choices, rather than one that promotes fragmented crises or unfounded optimism.
Now, let's look at population not as an indicator of 'extinction', but as a 'map' for designing the future.

The problem is this.
In 2017, Statistics Korea released its future population projections, but by 2018, the predictions had already begun to deviate significantly.
At the time, the National Statistical Office said that about 420,000 people were born, but in reality, about 350,000 people were born.
Although statistical errors are inevitable, we found that the differences were significant and beyond the margin of error.
If that's the case, wouldn't it be possible to discard the data and recalculate? However, the staff member in charge likely wouldn't have been able to do so unless the Statistics Act was revised.
For a long time, there has been criticism in academic circles that the population change rate is fast and the estimation cycle is too long.
However, since the law was not revised, the Ministry of Education had no choice but to use the statistical results from the National Statistical Office, and the National Statistical Office could not re-evaluate.
So in the end, no one is at fault.
Civil servants are people who carry out work according to procedures, and experts can provide direction and opinions, but they cannot be the ones to change laws and regulations.
(Fortunately, the National Statistical Office changed the cycle of future population projections from once every five years to every two years.)
However, there were people who actually suffered losses within that structure.
These are prospective teachers who were preparing to become teachers at the time, and teachers who had just been hired.
This is the phenomenon of population stagnation.
The population changes rapidly, and there is no system in place to design and implement future strategies accordingly, or it does not work.
That's the real problem.
--- From Chapter 1, "A Shift in Perspective: The Problem Is Not Population Decline"

Even population structure, which is described as a disaster, may not be a disaster if we expand our perspective to a global level.
The most populous generation in the world today is the so-called 'Zalpha'.
As you may know, the Jalpa Generation is a term that encompasses Generation Z and Generation Alpha, and refers to people born from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.
Although it is the smallest generation in Korea, it is becoming the largest generation in the world.
Moreover, since they will live a long time, the current large cohort size will be maintained for a long time.
Considering that the total fertility rate is on a downward trend not only in Korea but also around the world, and that the number of infants and toddlers being born has been decreasing recently, it is highly likely that when the Jalpa generation becomes the center of society, they will not be shrinking under population pressure, but will be active as a proper central generation.
The reason I bring this up is to suggest that we should not look at Korea's population change in a gloomy manner, but rather view it in a global context.
Here is the way for individuals to keep up with population growth.
--- From Chapter 1, "A Shift in Perspective: The Problem Is Not Population Decline"

"Will baby boomers live like this?" When their children grow up and become independent, will they sell their assets to help them secure a place to live? When I ask this question to first-generation baby boomers during lectures, nine out of ten shake their heads.
He said he would not live sacrificing himself for his children like that.
I don't know what I'll do when that time comes, but my will is firm.
If you ask the same question to the second generation of baby boomers, the answer you get is this:
“I don’t think you have enough money saved up to give it to me.”
This is the point.
Although we are quite familiar with age-related trends, we cannot interpret this graph solely in terms of the age effect.
In fact, people were thinking in a generational perspective.
These individuals come together and demonstrate behaviors based on generational values ​​in the marketplace.
--- From Chapter 2, “Three Lenses for Reading Population as Wealth: Age Effect, Period Effect, and Cohort Effect”

Once, I received an inquiry from a securities firm asking if it was worth investing in a high-end senior town that was being built with a deposit of over 1 billion won and a monthly rent of over 4 million won.
When I asked where it was located, I was told it was at the foot of Mt. Bukhan in the northwest of Seoul, a place with good air and a good place to play golf.
Since they say they are targeting a population that enjoys golf as a daily leisure activity, they said that it is not the right location.
Why is that? The answer is also in the diagram above.
Looking at 〔Diagram 2-10〕, there is another peculiar point that was not mentioned before.
Whether in 2009 or 2024, the Han River is wider and deeper than the Military Demarcation Line, so it will never be crossed.
The only way to cross the Han River is to travel between Gwangjin-gu and Songpa/Gangdong.
But where do people come from who can afford to put down a deposit of over 1 billion won and pay over 4 million won per month in housing costs, as listed above? The Gangnam area.
Now, with movement from Gangnam to Bundang decreasing, is there a possibility of a shift north of Seoul? I explained this while showing the chart, and the securities firm promptly withdrew its investment.
--- From Chapter 2, “Three Lenses for Reading Population as Wealth: Age Effect, Period Effect, and Cohort Effect”

The subtlety of population strategy is that these three layers of change occur at different rates and intensities.
Therefore, it is difficult to establish a specific response strategy simply by knowing that ‘the population is changing.’
A more systematic approach is needed to determine which level of change will have the greatest impact on our business and the future we envision, when those changes will become fully realized, which social phenomena we should examine more deeply, and what data we should collect and to what extent.
So, in this chapter, I would like to introduce 'population phenomena that should be noted in Korea' in line with the flow of the 3M framework.
If we look at population only from a macro perspective, the future may look bleak.
Then, when we look at it from a medium or micro perspective, new opportunities are revealed within it, and we can even find clues to overcome problems that were seen from a macro perspective.
It is at this point that the 3M framework becomes a useful strategic tool for simultaneously interpreting both crises and opportunities.
--- From Chapter 3, "Population Strategy Designed in Three Layers: From Changes in Scale to Changes in Lifestyle"

Company B was having trouble deciding whether to build an additional production plant.
We had already completed a certain amount of review on where to build to reduce logistics costs, and had already decided on several candidate sites.
Factories had no choice but to be built in areas outside the metropolitan area, but the problem was that it had been difficult to find management positions in regional factories recently.
In the past, there was no problem sending employees to regional factories even if they were hired in Seoul, but now there is a growing trend of reluctance to go to regional factories.
Among the candidate regions were Cheonan and Asan, and in 2022, many people moved from these two regions to Pyeongtaek.
In particular, many 3-4 person households with children moved.
At first glance, this could be viewed negatively as a major population outflow.
However, when we closely analyzed the resident population along with the movement of registered residents, we found that Pyeongtaek, Asan, and Cheonan were already grouped into one living area.
Although the administrative districts are different in Gyeonggi-do (Pyeongtaek) and Chungcheongnam-do (Asan and Cheonan), Pyeongtaek is in charge of residential and living infrastructure, Asan is a major commuting area, and Cheonan is a consumption and leisure area.
Perhaps with the establishment of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor campus in Pyeongtaek, the number of advanced manufacturing jobs has increased, attracting a young, well-educated population.
As living infrastructure improved, it appears that young people from nearby areas such as Cheonan and Asan moved to Pyeongtaek.
Even when the road is congested, it is only a 30-minute drive, so it is not burdensome to live in Pyeongtaek and commute to Asan and Cheonan.
In this way, beyond administrative boundaries, the three regions were already operating as one city.
Currently, among households with children aged 30 to 49 living in Pyeongtaek, Cheonan, and Asan, there are approximately 100,000 households.
This number far exceeds the number of households with children in Daejeon or Ulsan.
And this scale remains constant without major fluctuations.
And he's young.
The company, which discovered the demographic trend of commuting and living created by young households, decided to take advantage of this by creating an environment that makes commuting as comfortable as possible, rather than building dormitories near the factory.
--- From Chapter 3, "Population Strategy Designed in Three Layers: From Changes in Scale to Changes in Lifestyle"

Individualism is also a characteristic shared by Generation Z around the world (in fact, millennials were also labeled as individualists when they first emerged), but it seems that the modifiers added to it have become important.
For example, while the individualism of Generation Z in our country goes beyond simple individualization and is expressed as 'nuclear individualism,' Indonesia has a strong communal nature that can be called 'inclusive individualism.'
Although the lifestyle is individualistic, the value of success is inclusive enough to include the cause of serving the community.
Just because they value community doesn't mean they are blindly patriotic.
This characteristic becomes more evident when compared to Vietnam's Generation Z, which has a strong "economic patriotism" that prioritizes consuming domestic brands and wants to contribute to the country's economic growth.
Vietnamese youth rejoiced when Vietnam's electric car brand VinFast listed on the U.S. stock market in 2023.
He said he was proud that the country had become an automobile manufacturing country.
Even though the company's value plummeted immediately after listing and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, I bought the company's cars.
Doesn't this look familiar? It was like that in our country and China in the past.
This is the case in Vietnam now, but this kind of thing does not appear in Indonesia.
Rather, they describe Hyundai as a “quasi-domestic brand” because Hyundai Motors built a factory in their country.
Even if we assume that automobiles are like this because they do not have a domestic brand, it is interesting to note that this characteristic also appears in other goods that do have domestic brands.
Even global brands like Nike proudly talk about "Made in Indonesia" as if it were their own brand.
From personal experience, I once had an Indonesian friend check the shoe tags at a Nike store in Korea and bewildered when he said, "Why are there more 'Made in Vietnam' items in Korea? If it's made in Indonesia, it must be better."
--- From Chapter 4, “Overseas Expansion Strategy: Reading Population Dynamics”

If the incentive to advance to graduate school weakens, even Seoul National University will have difficulty recruiting graduate students.
The signs are already appearing.
According to an analysis commissioned by the Seoul National University Research Office conducted by our center, if the current talent pool continues to be maintained, the number of graduate students at Seoul National University in 2040 is projected to decrease by approximately 33% compared to the current level.
This is not just a problem at Seoul National University.
If Seoul National University cannot produce enough master's and doctoral students, then Korea's prestigious universities such as KAIST, Yonsei University, and Korea University will also not be able to produce master's and doctoral students.
Then, companies will lack the R&D personnel they need in the future, the young people who can go into the first quadrant I showed you earlier.
If the low birth rate is a long-term crisis, the shortage of R&D personnel is a more immediate and real crisis.
--- From Chapter 5, "The Power to Transform Population into Wealth: Talent and Capability"

Family-friendly policies are no longer a symbol of 'good management.'
In a future where competition for talent is fierce, family-friendly systems will become a key corporate survival strategy.
If all job seekers preferred flexible work arrangements, companies would change their systems to hire these people.
Of course, the definition of flexibility we are talking about here will vary from company to company.
We also need to closely examine whether the rigidity of our labor market has ultimately worked to reduce the autonomy of companies' work systems.
No matter how much the government emphasizes the necessity of this system, what ultimately drives companies is the sense of crisis that "without this system, we cannot secure talent."
Whether it starts from national and social imperatives or from corporate survival, even if the actions are the same, if the reasons are different, the execution ability will differ.

--- From Chapter 5, "The Power to Transform Population into Wealth: Talent and Capability"