Nahollojok is getting common in Korean society. The term means 'a group of people who prefer to be or live by themselves.' Now, it is not just a case of Korea, but of many other modernized countries in the world. With the change from tradition to modernity, the number of people living alone or in small family has increased a lot. This phenomenon could be explained with many different dimensions in our society but here, I would like to talk about three; womens education, aging population and development of technology.
One of the main causes is an increase in the number of educated women. In the past, it wasn't common or even not allowed for females to study and go to university and get their own jobs. In Korea, many of middle-aged females got married in their early twenties and become housewives. In these days, however, more and more young ladies are becoming professional. They refuse to become housewives but to go to college, get degrees and have their own careers. As a result, they tend to get married after getting a job, later in their lives, or even not to get married because they can now afford their living. Therefore, this caused an increase in the number of female population living by themselves.
Another cause is the aging population. With the development of medical science and expanded welfare and health care services, people are living longer. According to reports, the average life span of Koreans is longer than 80 years and this is a huge increase compared to the generation of our grandmothers and grandfathers'. And usually the old people, after their children get married and have thier children, live alone or only with their husband or wife in rural areas. So, the elderly could be another reason for the increase of population living alone or within small family.
Lastly, the development of technology including phones and internet is also a major cause for the phenomenon. These days, most of us use internet or smartphones every day. So we can easily contact with our friends or families. Also recently, 'social network services' have made it much easier to communicate with others wherever we are and whenever we want to. With this development in modern times, now people feel less lonely about being or living alone in real life. Therefore, this makes people feel less necessity to live with others but prefer to live the single life.
In conclusion, it is not a surprise that more and more people are living alone or in small families these days. They don't feel alone with their phones and internet, working women are enjoying their single lives, and people are having longer life than before. Thus, it is not something that can be judged whether it's good or bad, but a change which is natural in the modern society.
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