Into the 1950s Southern Korea had an underdeveloped, agrarian economy that depended greatly on international aid.
The army leadership that emerged in the very early 1960s and led the country for 25 % century was autocratic and, every so often, repressive, but its pragmatic and versatile commitment to financial development lead to just just what became referred to as “miracle from the Han River.” The south Korean economy grew at an average annual rate of nearly 9 percent, and per capita income increased more than a hundredfold during the next three decades. Southern Korea ended up being changed into a commercial powerhouse with a highly skilled labour force. Into the late twentieth century, but, economic development slowed down, as well as in 1997 Southern Korea had been obligated to accept a $57 billion bailout through the Overseas Monetary Fund (IMF)—then the greatest such rescue in IMF history. The country also wrestled with reforming the chaebŏl and liberalizing its economy. Nevertheless, its economy enjoyed a data recovery in subsequent years, in addition to nation entered the twenty-first century on a comparatively firm footing that is economic.
South Korean culture underwent an similarly quick change after the Korean War.
The populace a lot more than doubled involving the end associated with the war together with change of this 21st century. Simultaneously, contemporary education developed quickly, again with considerable federal federal government participation but additionally due to the resurgence associated with the Korean people’s old-fashioned zeal for education after years of repression through the Japanese occupation duration (1910–45). The growth of educational institutions as well as commercial and commercial enterprises close to Southern Korea’s major cities attracted an escalating quantity of rural visitors to towns. Seoul, in specific, expanded some 10-fold to about 10 million individuals between your end of World War II together with very early century that is 21st. There was clearly a matching development in communications media, especially paper and mag publishing. a committed program had been also undertaken to enhance and modernize the united states’s transportation infrastructure.
The absolute most conspicuous social improvement in Southern Korea, but, was the emergence of a middle income. Land reform carried call at the early 1950s, together because of the spread of contemporary training therefore the expansion associated with the economy, caused the disappearance regarding the once-privileged yangban (landholding) course, and a fresh elite emerged through the ranks for the previous commoners. Another significant social modification ended up being the decrease for the extended-family system: rural-to-urban migration broke traditional family members residing plans, as metropolitan dwellers tended to reside in apartments as nuclear families and, through household planning, to possess less kiddies. In addition, women strenuously campaigned for complete equality that is legal won improved home ownership legal rights. Females additionally won the proper to join up as a head of family members in a family that is new system that took impact in 2008. Beneath the system that is old guys could register as family members minds; therefore, young ones had been legitimately the main father’s family register, perhaps perhaps not the mother’s. The new system increased women’s legal standing in, among other activities, divorce or separation and child-custody instances. This method additionally awarded used and stepchildren liberties that have been corresponding to those of biological children—for instance, in things of inheritance.
Rapid urbanization, the nuclear family members system, the increase in women’s active participation throughout the market, and lengthening life expectancies implied that by the very early twenty-first century Southern Korea had decreasing birth prices plus an aging populace. The population that is overall anticipated to decrease on the next years also. The government had been concerned that less kiddies and an 
aging society would slow financial development and destabilize the social security system in the foreseeable future.