Living on the Margin: Downward Mobility and the Plight of the Self-Employed in Neoliberal South Korea

This article examines the self-employed population as a precarious and insecure social class in Korea since the economic crisis in the late 1990s. Most self-employed workers experience economic hardship characterized by low incomes and high turnover rates despite long work hours and family help. These precarious conditions are often explained as the result of neoliberal economic restructuring that laid off salaried employees on a massive scale, pushed displaced workers into self-employment, and heightened intense competition among the self-employed. While this economic perspective explains intense competition and low incomes of the self-employed, I argue that particular state policies also accelerated the “unmaking” of the self-employed by not providing any effective protection. By looking at the experiences of understudied self-employed workers in Korea, this article engages in a critical understanding of globalization, labor, and social inequality.