(Illustration by Raffi Marhaba, The Dream Collective)
People with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities have long been discriminated against and marginalized across the globe, but the roots of disability inequity and its social consequences differ from country to country. In South Korea, people have traditionally perceived disability as shameful and troublesome—something to manage, treat, and control in isolated institutions, separate from society.
One of the most striking examples is the government’s forced movement of people with disabilities into isolated institutions in advance of the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and 1988 Seoul Olympics, on the grounds that they would damage the country’s global image and reputation. Many of the people who were institutionalized in this way suffered human rights violations, including violence and forced labor, even after the Olympics ended. The Welfare of Persons with Disabilities Act passed in April 1981—originally enacted to justify then-President Doo Whan Chun’s military coup in December 1980 and promote his agenda of building a welfare state—did little to deter these actions.
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Despite policy improvements over the past decades, society’s discriminatory attitudes toward disability have remained entrenched. One important contributing factor relates to growing industrialization in South Korea. Companies focused on efficiency and mass production have perceived people with disabilities as unproductive and unfit for work, and thus excluded them from the labor market. This same phenomenon occurred in the early stages of industrialization in other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, and produced the same results: inferior terms of work and compensation, coupled with increasing stigmatization and isolation.
However, new models of sustainable employment for people with disabilities—particularly developmental disabilities
such as intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—in Korea are emerging that foster self-determination and fulfillment among disabled workers, and value their participation in society and the marketplace in a way that fights against prevailing prejudice and discrimination.
Cultural Context
As with many social issues, understanding the cultural context of disability discrimination can provide a starting point for solutions. In Korea and other Asian countries, one point of reference is a strong mental model of “normality” embedded in Confucianism
and Buddhism. These belief systems have heavily influenced perspectives on disability, leading to even greater barriers to inclusion than in Western countries.
The Confucian principle of Xin Xin Xue Fan
(身言書判), for example, emphasizes the idea that Jun Zi (君子), a competent person, should have four characteristics: a good body, the ability to communicate, literacy, and judgment. This implies that because people with disabilities don’t meet these standards, they take on low social status in Confucian ideology.
Buddhism generally sees the cause of disability as Karma (業), the result of a person’s sins committed in previous lives. After conducting an inter-Asian comparison study with colleagues from Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam, Yueh-Ching Chou, a professor at Taiwan’s National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, found that people still understand disability this way. Some interviewees described disability as a “personally earned tragedy embodying faults accumulated in past or present lives” or “a curse due to (a person’s) past sins.”
These viewpoints, and the importance of social status and “saving face” in East Asian culture, have long contributed to feelings of shame and disappointment among people with disabilities. These feelings extend to their families, many of whom have forced disabled relatives into hiding and stopped them from pursuing careers. They have also contributed to society seeing disability as an individual problem to address privately, and as a result, people with disabilities have become invisible.
New Focus on Developmental Disability
Since the 1988 Olympics, the Korean government has made numerous institutional efforts to raise awareness and improve the treatment of people with disabilities. These include legislation such as the Guarantee of Convenience for Persons with Disabilities Act in 1997, the Employment Promotion and Vocational Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities Act in 2001, the Disability Discrimination Prevention and Rights Remedy Act in 2007, and the Disability Pension Act in 2010.
However, public support for the well-being, education, and employment of people with developmental disabilities has remained limited until very recently. Just like people with physical disabilities, people with developmental disabilities suffer from negative social perceptions, violence at school, microaggression, and a lack of employment and other opportunities. Indeed, they often experience more discrimination and shunning than people with physical disabilities because of their challenges with communication and/or cognition. In the job market, the 2021 employment rate for people with developmental disabilities was 28 percent compared to 35 percent for all people with disabilities and 60 percent for all Korean people. They also earn significantly less than workers with physical disabilities.
In 2015, the Act on Support for Persons with Developmental Disabilities came into effect, which recognizes that challenges such as limited communication and socialization skills are different from physical disabilities. And in 2018, the government announced the Comprehensive Plan for Lifelong Care for People with Developmental Disabilities. This legislation aims to provide health, education, and social welfare services that take the disabled person’s life cycle into account and to reduce mental and emotional pressure on parents. This ambitious plan was prompted by a shocking incident in 2017, when parents of children with developmental disabilities begged local residents to reconsider their opposition to a special education school in their town.
Government efforts like these are helpful and necessary, but creating a more inclusive and equitable society for people with developmental disabilities also requires changing perceptions and cultural norms—and media and social enterprise present powerful ways to do just that.
Changing Perceptions Through Media
In Korean dramas and films, as in reality, people with disabilities are not well represented. A 2019 media diversity study analyzed 2,713 characters in Korean dramas that aired on major channels and found that people with disabilities represented 0.7 percent of characters compared to 4.9 percent in real life. Meanwhile, an analysis of 81 Korean movies featuring people with disabilities as main characters found that the films tended to depict them as weak and inferior human beings in negative, less-hopeful contexts.
However, there are signs of change. One good example is the TV drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which launched in 2022 and tells the story of Woo Young-woo, a young lawyer who has both a genius brain and autism spectrum disorder. Woo overcomes her limitations, uses her unique perspective to win cases, and ultimately earns the respect of her coworkers. It was the most-watched, non-English language series globally through Netflix in August 2022 and ranked among the top 10 dramas in more than 50 countries.
While it has faced some critiques, the series has raised public awareness, and shared an important message about how to regard and support people with developmental disabilities. Instead of defining Woo’s limitations and denying her opportunities, supporting characters help her achieve and grow in her own way. Through the relationships between Woo and those around her, the drama raises the question of whether society creates meaningful opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, and thus influences how viewers engage with the issue.
Another popular drama launched in 2022, Our Blues, touches on a number of social problems—including suicide, child abuse, teen pregnancy, bullying, and mental disability—with a theme of love and forgiveness. In particular, it features Jung Eun-hye, who has genetic disorder in real life, in one of the main roles and suggests that the feelings of people with disabilities are no different from those of people without them. So far, it has more than 650,000 YouTube views and more than 105 million hours of watch time on Netflix.
Films such as You’re So Precious to Me (2021) and Inseparable Bros
(2018) also offer non-stereotypical portraits of people with disabilities. These films and TV series are not only changing mindsets in Korea but also abroad; more than 60 percent of 260 million Netflix subscribers
watched Korean titles in 2023.
Changing Perceptions Through Social Enterprise
For many, an essential element of a self-determined life is the ability to have a decent job. In the past, the Korean government has made various efforts to promote the employment of people with disabilities through institutional means. But this has not met their needs in terms of the quantity and quality of available jobs, let alone sustainability.
Testworks Founder and CEO Dale Yoon, formerly a software engineer at Microsoft and Samsung Electronics, presents a five-year service award to Joon Hee Lee, a Testworks employee with developmental disabilities. (Image courtesy of Testworks)
Recognizing that government alone can’t meet the demand for jobs, a number of impact-oriented organizations are stepping in. One example is Testworks, a high-tech social enterprise launched in 2015 specializing in artificial intelligence data and software testing. As of July 2023, the company employed 17 people with developmental disabilities and 11 people with hearing impairments. Testworks discovered that people with developmental disabilities are particularly skilled at repetitive tasks, such as labeling photographs to inform machine learning for self-driving cars. They also show a higher accuracy and have a higher retention rate than people without developmental disabilities. This gives both workers and the company a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Testworks is on track to reach $9 million in revenue by 2023 and has already attracted more than $8 million in investment.
Another example is Donggubat, a low-tech social enterprise that employs people with developmental disabilities to produce eco-friendly products like natural soaps. Donggubat supplies its products to cosmetics companies, hotels, resorts, and distribution companies, and the company’s revenue reached $10 million in 2023. As of June 2024, Donggubat employed 54 people with developmental disabilities out of a total of 116 employees. The company’s high-end product design and packaging, and commitment to sustainability has drawn upscale clients like the five-star Walker Hill Hotel, challenging the perception that employees with disabilities and the creation of upmarket, luxury products don’t go hand in hand.
Autistic designers at Autistar developed “Zony,” a zebra-pony design, for Samsung Electronics products like watches and smartphones. (Image courtesy of Autistar)
Autistar, short for “autism special talents and rehabilitation,” is another social enterprise that provides opportunities to people with developmental disabilities. The company strives to help people with autism see their disabilities as talents and connect them with industrial design jobs. As of July 2024, the company employed 13 autistic designers out of 21 employees, and 7 autistic designers have gotten design jobs after working with the company. When asked about her vision, Founder and CEO SoHyun Lee, says, “I want everyone, including autistic people, to be able to find what they want to do, what they’re good at, and do it.” Lee is also a professor of special education at Ewha Womans University, where she started her social business as a program to leverage the artistic talents of young people with autism. In a recent study, Lee and her colleagues found that the more autistic the designers are, the more unique their drawings are. This suggests that a higher degree of autistic characteristics and greater neurodiversity among employees may offer design companies a competitive advantage. Autistar has collaborated with several big companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and UNIQLO.
Building Opportunities for Greater Equity
Koreans still widely associate physical and mental problems with an inability to work and live as an independent human being. Getting to the roots of disability inequity requires innovative media and social enterprises dedicated to creating new perceptions of and opportunities for people with disabilities. The brave and innovative efforts featured here are directly challenging old, discriminatory mental models. They are changing how Korean society thinks about people with developmental disabilities and hopefully offer insights into how innovators in other countries, especially Asian countries with similar contexts and development trajectories, can do the same.
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Read more stories by Hyun Shin, Hyunjoong Kim & Haeun Kim.