Quality of Life and Happiness: The Myth of Development in South Korea

Abstract

This paper attempts to debunk the myth of remarkable successful story about the Korean development and draw a new window on sustainability in a developing country, standing at the turning point of its pathway. The question of why are some societies and contexts better than others are raised by the developmental tails and the more recent downswing in the people's faith. Three broad arguments for a better world can be systematically applied to the empirical study of quality of life by estimating the mechanism for common denominators. The Easterlin thesis of cross-national differences between economic growth and quality of life appears to be supported in the bivariate test while the multivariate analysis reveals that wealthy countries display no greater objective quality of life than poor ones. The time series analysis shows that a rise in education and social stability increases objective quality of life, and the possibility that economic growth breaks up with quality of life becomes more clear when we turns to historical evidence. By contrast, the importance of the happiness level is viewed by respondents as positively related with household income, wealth, and class consciousness differentials. The discrepancy of development suggests that the price of distorted achievement in the country paradoxically accumulated a driving force against the growth-oriented strategy with an increasing quest for quality of life and happiness.