South Korea had 8.36 million single-person households this year, or 36.99% of the country's 22.6 million households, according to Statistics Korea. That means more than one in three households consists of a person living alone. While the population is shrinking, the number of households keeps rising, and single-person households are growing especially fast. Some analysts say the figure could approach 10 million by 2040.
For people living alone, the biggest appeal of the holiday is sitting down to a holiday meal with parents they otherwise reach only by phone or through messaging apps such as KakaoTalk. But for those spending Chuseok on their own, the long break is also a chance to earn decent money through short-term, well-paying part-time work. On neighborhood-based platforms, gigs caring for dogs left behind in empty homes over the holiday are popular.
Holiday gifts from employers and others have become another source of income. Recipients sell items they do not need on secondhand trading platforms at below list price. After the Chuseok break, posts reading "Selling unopened Chuseok gifts" are easy to find on those platforms. The practice has become common enough that the term "myeongjeol-tech" — a blend of the Korean words for "holiday" (myeongjeol) and "tech," as in personal finance techniques — has entered everyday speech.
The most frequently traded items are canned ham and tuna sets and household goods sets. Occasionally, unusual items such as presidential Chuseok gift sets appear in listings. At last year's Chuseok, a watch engraved with President Lee Jae-myung's signature turned up. The presidential office said that this year it sent Chuseok gift sets containing regional specialty products to prominent figures across various fields, people recognized for national service and socially disadvantaged groups. With living costs rising sharply of late, no small number of buyers are hunting for such items. This picture is not unrelated to the growing number of people living alone. Selling off even gifts given with care to help make ends meet reflects the practicality that defines single-person households. It is also a bitter snapshot of an era, showing how thin the wallets of young people have become amid high prices, a tough job market and housing shortages.
