Why is South Korea experiencing a science and technology crisis and what are the solutions?

South Korea’s science and technology sector is experiencing a crisis due to brain drain and job instability. Measures such as scholarships, exemptions from military service, and research grants have been proposed to address the problem, but the fundamental solution is to control the supply and improve the quality of life.

 

South Korea is in the midst of a science and technology crisis. Korean newspapers and broadcasters report that students are reluctant to go to science and technology universities. At universities, professors complain that there is no talent in science and technology because all the best people have left the country. In industry, they say that there is a lot of work to be done but no one to do it. This is what society calls the science and technology crisis. Some people disagree. The situation is not as bad as it is reported. There are enough students, it’s relatively easy to get a job, and there are some high-paying jobs. If the media is exaggerating, then why is there a crisis in science and engineering everywhere? The reason is that the focus of the crisis in science and engineering is not on the overall numbers, but on the brain drain of top talent. In fact, it’s not just the sciences that are struggling in the current economic climate. With the exception of medical and law schools, it’s fair to say that few fields are doing well, but the situation in the sciences is highlighted because of the high proportion of students in these fields at universities and the impact they have on society and the economy as a whole. Before discussing the solution to the crisis in science and technology, let’s take a look at the background of the crisis and how it started in the context of changing economic trends.
As of 2024, the general consensus is that Korea’s economic situation is far from the worst. After going through the IMF in 1997, the Korean economy rebounded strongly, but it had to go through a series of setbacks. Internally, the country was plagued by the post-IMF credit crunch (2003), and externally, it has been through the bursting of the dot-com bubble (1999) and the global financial crisis (2007), which was triggered by the recent subprime mortgage meltdown. As an export-oriented economy that aims to grow, Korea’s economy is inevitably sensitive to the global economy, and the country is currently traveling through a long tunnel that may never end due to the effects of unfavorable global economic conditions. In this tunnel, we are doing quite well from a macro perspective. S&P and Moody’s have repeatedly upgraded Korea’s credit rating, saying that the Korean economy is managing the crisis better than other OECD countries due to its strong fundamentals in the face of the triple whammy of the European economic crisis, declining consumption and prolonged recession in the United States, and concerns about a soft landing in China. However, at the micro level, the suffering of individual citizens enduring this situation is indescribable. Life is hard, and healing is the theme of the bestsellers hitting bookstores these days. Companies have gone into emergency management, saying they are not sure of the economic situation until next year, and there are news of personnel cuts everywhere. A large proportion of these cuts are to researchers, many of whom are science and technology graduates.
As such, whenever the economy enters a recessionary period, the first people in the industry to feel the pain of losing their jobs are those in R&D, and this has taught the rest of society about job instability in the sciences. Children who grew up seeing their friends’ fathers in the sciences lose their jobs whenever the economy tanked around them naturally shunned the sciences as they grew up, and high-achieving students flocked to related majors to become doctors and lawyers, which are known for their relative stability. This phenomenon is evident in university entrance exams, especially at Seoul National University, where the SAT scores of science and engineering applicants are lower than the average of all medical applicants nationwide, and even among the top students, most of them go to medical or law schools after graduation, while many others study abroad. As a result, there are very few talented students left in science and engineering.
This is a brief overview of how the crisis started and the current situation. The lack of talent in science and technology, where creative minds gather to develop technologies and create added value, is a fatal loss and a flaw in the future development and growth of a country. How can the current crisis be solved? The government, companies, and universities have come up with various measures to solve the science and technology crisis, which has become more prominent in recent years. However, their effectiveness has been minimal. Before we look for the real solution to the crisis, we will first discuss the various initiatives that have already been proposed and are being implemented, and discuss their effectiveness.
Solutions to the STEM crisis: what are they?
Scholarships are often the first thing that comes to mind when looking for a solution to the STEM crisis. The idea is to increase the amount of scholarships available to engineering students to reduce the cost of tuition and give them an incentive not to choose other majors. Most of the funding for the scholarship program comes from government subsidies. The largest scholarship program is currently the Korea Scholarship Foundation’s Science and Engineering Scholarship, which provides a full tuition waiver for students with high entrance grades who maintain a certain grade level during their enrollment. Despite this tremendous benefit, top students in the sciences are still leaving for medical and law schools. This phenomenon confirms that scholarships alone are not enough to solve the STEM crisis.
The next solution mentioned is a military service exemption program. This program, which exempts students from military service if they work as professional researchers at domestic science and technology universities or related companies, was created to inspire male students, who make up the majority of science and technology students, to pursue science and technology careers and to entice students who want to study abroad to stay in Korea. While the system has been successful in attracting many current students to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees at domestic universities instead of joining the military, many students who have the opportunity to study abroad are choosing to do so even though they are required to fulfill their military service obligations.
One proposed solution is the engineering certification program. Engineering Certification is a certification program operated by the Korea Engineering Education Accreditation Agency, and was created with the intention of providing a standard and alternative way to help engineering graduates be recognized in society and industry by granting so-called engineering certificates to graduates who meet certain requirements at selected engineering schools after review and consultation with the Foundation. The program was started with the idea of creating a certification like the ones in other professions, but it is hardly effective. This is because the value of this qualification is not recognized by society and industry. This may be due to lack of publicity and the fact that the business is new, but I am very skeptical of these certification programs because they are essentially unrealistic and the requirements are not high enough.
Finally, scholarships are the most commonly mentioned solution. In engineering schools and labs, where research is the main focus, funding is the real need. Research grants have been repeatedly proposed as a solution to the crisis, with the idea that they will fulfill this need and promote the development of science and technology. However, even considering the size of Korea’s economy, the amount of funding is still far below that of developed countries, and the funding that is available is divided among many universities and national organizations, so it does not contribute to the actual development of research quality. In addition, people point to improving the poor research environment and treatment, easing unnecessary regulations, and systematic management of science and technology personnel as solutions.
While these solutions are effective at a low level, they do not solve the crisis in science and technology. The reason is that they do not address the essence of the crisis. The essence of the STEM crisis is the job insecurity of STEM graduates. The life of seniors who have graduated from engineering schools is not reflected satisfactorily to the younger generation. The current students, who have learned from experience that the first to be laid off during the IMF and economic crisis are researchers, do not choose science and engineering as a career path, and even if they do, they seek future security through other means. Therefore, no amount of scholarships, better treatment, tuition reduction, or military service exemption can ultimately save science and engineering as the best students are avoiding it.
To summarize, in order to revitalize STEM, people need to see STEM graduates succeed in life. We need to make sure that the best people stay in the field. People flock to medical and law schools not because of the free tuition, good treatment, and exemption from military service, but because of the promise of life afterward, which is why students and parents are willing to pay the highest tuition rates. Therefore, the solution to the STEM crisis should really focus on improving the quality of life and income of STEM graduates. So what are the possible solutions? I argue that the key to the solution lies in controlling the supply of science and engineering graduates, because I believe that the current situation is an excessive supply of science and engineering graduates compared to the demand of Korean industry in a labor market governed by the law of supply and demand, and that the lower price can be raised to a socially acceptable level by controlling the supply.
How long do science and engineering students have to work and earn money? Doctors and lawyers don’t have a set retirement age, and professors are between 60 and 70 years old. However, the retirement age for private sector workers and researchers is very short. Even in their 40s, they have to worry about retirement, which is why the bitter buzzword “four years of work” has spread. Especially those who come from science and technology majors, which are closely related to technology, are more likely to lose their jobs in their younger years if they fail to develop themselves and acquire new skills, as the technology cycle is getting shorter and shorter. However, doctors have a long working life because they are concerned with the human body, and lawyers are concerned with social order and rules, so they can be economically active for a long time. However, people in the sciences have a shorter working life, and the amount of time they can earn money is limited. In order for their lives to be socially acceptable, they need to make more money in the short time they can earn it. Only then, after a short period of economic activity, can the upcoming old age be guaranteed, and only then can the phenomenon of preference for science and technology, despite its high job insecurity, be created. Today, many students applying to the financial sector want to work there because there is no guaranteed retirement age and the risks are high, but the rewards are also high. In order to make it possible for science and technology graduates to earn a lot of money in a short period of time, the labor market needs to adjust the current oversupply of science and technology workers, and the specific application is to reduce the number of science and technology seats in universities.
There is a view that this is an unrealistic solution to the science and technology crisis. This is because it would require government support and consistent assurances of policy intent, and it would be difficult for universities themselves, which rely on tuition fees for a large part of their finances, to decide to reduce seats, and there would be strong opposition from industry. Industry, in particular, will be desperate to prevent any reduction in the supply of scientific and technological talent in the face of increasing global competition, as it will inevitably lead to an overall increase in costs due to higher research and product development costs. In particular, they will argue that they are the ones who drive the growth of the Korean economy, and that higher wages for science and technology graduates will inevitably undermine the competitiveness of their industries and hinder the development of the country as a whole. However, adjusting the supply of science and technology graduates is not necessary to create another vested interest group, but rather to restore the lives of science and technology workers who have been sacrificed in the past growth of the Korean economy to an acceptable level, and to establish a sustainable model for the development of the Korean economy based on a robust manufacturing industry in a situation where the past methods that required individual sacrifice for the development and growth of the entire country no longer work. There will be many other conflicts and difficulties. However, it is a measles that must be suffered in order to solve the science and technology crisis and supply the industry with highly qualified human resources in the long run.
Alongside this, we can offer more realistic alternatives. The core of the argument is the same, of course. We need to improve the income and quality of life for engineering graduates to keep the best and brightest in the field. Alongside reducing the number of engineering seats is the selection and focus of research funding. We need to stop the current system of cherry-picking funding, and give full support to a small number of truly promising and value-creating talents and institutions, so that they can create high added value. At the same time, the research workforce must be provided with a satisfactory standard of living and research environment so that they can continue to perform well and show society that they can lead a fulfilling life as a person engaged in technology R&D. In turn, the next generation will prefer such a life and thus ensure a continuous supply of highly qualified human resources.
In this article, we’ve discussed the current science and engineering crisis, the various ways to address it, and the fundamental solution. Korea is a society that does not tolerate failure, and there is almost no social safety net for the unsuccessful. In such a society where failure is not tolerated, the life of science and technology majors who live with high risk and rapid technological innovation cycles is harsh. It is not yet clear what needs to be done to build social safety nets and achieve the ideal goal of a society that can accept failure. However, if engineering schools, which play the role of a supplier in the logic of supply and demand, use strategies to control the amount of supply, it is expected that they will be able to solve the crisis in engineering and contribute to creating a society where talented people can challenge and be rewarded despite the high risk of failure.