North Korea’s “new generation” includes everyone from unmarried young people to infants. North Korea defines this new generation as the “driving force that must carry on the patriotic and revolutionary line” and has emphasized its ideological indoctrination.
However, this new generation includes young people who will lead North Korean society, the so-called “MZ Generation,” which prioritizes personal interests over those of the state of the collective. They are uninterested or even displeased with ideological indoctrination.
Thus, the North Korean youth display different work attitudes from those of previous generations. They tend to seek jobs that pay a lot and enable them to live well rather than jobs where they can flex their political muscles. They also strongly desire to go abroad to experience a free atmosphere.
North Korea’s MZ Generation prefers making money and overseas work experiences
A 20-something resident of Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province, told Daily NK that young people today “strongly wish to do everything they can and go as far as they can, living at a certain standard, since you only live once.” He said, “This being the case, money and high economic status are becoming their highest values, and this way of thinking is spreading far and wide like a virus.
“Before, young people preferred to become guidance officials in state agencies as political power or position was connected to stable lives, but now, they want jobs that pay well, even if that means less activity in organizations — for example, taking a job in a government agency in name only while engaging in trade,” he added.
“Now, ‘Let’s go overseas at least once’ has become a slogan,” a 20-something in Pyongyang said. “[Young people] tend to prefer going overseas to work as expatriate employees or serving in specialized agencies with many opportunities for overseas work.” In Pyongyang, more and more young people want to experience a different world. Accordingly, they are most interested in the IT sector, where opportunities to work overseas abound, and the foreign languages sector.
In the provinces, where economic stability is the top value, young people prefer well-paying jobs. In Pyongyang, where people already enjoy economic stability, they prefer jobs that enable them to experience social atmospheres that differ from North Korea for themselves.
North demands loyalty in job placement, but young people just go through the motions
However, people in North Korea are not free to choose their work. The state decides where one works and what one does. Personal ability and specialization are partial considerations in determining job placement and career paths, but the most crucial factor is songbun, or personal background. People with good songbun — or, in other words, people from good families — enjoy advantages in job placement.
“It’s not easy to land the job you want based on personal effort alone,” an official in Pyongyang told Daily NK. “The reality is that you have to leverage your money, parents’ power or personal connections.” However, he added that while one needed just money or power to get the job you wanted in the past, “things are a bit different now as you need experience in patriotic activities.”
The official said that as North Korea equates patriotism with loyalty to the party, state, and supreme leader, how much loyalty an individual has displayed has recently become the most important factor in job placement. To land desired jobs, people must compete to show the most loyalty.
In South Korea, young people build the experience they need to get their desired jobs through volunteer work, outside activities, internships and contests. In North Korea, they engage in activities to prove their loyalty.
This suggests North Korea is demanding more and more loyalty from young people as time passes.
However, a 20-something resident of Rason said young people “are working hard to build up patriotic experience while simply pretending to actively participate in social and political activities.” This suggests that North Korean youth now display an “artificial” loyalty, resulting from a desire for jobs.
In a study published in December by the Korea Institute for National Unification titled “North Korean Youth in the Kim Jong-Un Era: Navigating Between Compliance and Independence, Traversing the State and Market Boundaries,” the authors wrote that North Korean young people “differ from previous generations in the political and ideological tension between the state and the individual” and that they are “not unconditionally devoted to the party or the state, but obey simply to satisfy personal interests or display only perfunctory obedience, which makes the state endlessly nervous.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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April 25, 2024 at 08:00AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)