It’s a sacrifice more and more Korean families are willing to make. Chung is part of a fast-growing demographic: men who live apart from their families so that their children may be educated in an English-speaking country. They are known as father geese, after the birds famously devoted to raising their young. The exact numbers are difficult to pinpoint. But according to UNESCO, the number of Korean students studying abroad rose from 110,000 in 1999 to 174,000 last year. Of those, about 10 percent, or 17,000, are believed to be high-school age or younger, and living with their mothers. “Among affluent families in Seoul, sending kids abroad for study has become fashionable,” says Kim Ho Gi, a sociologist at Yonsei University. “They want to relieve their kids –from the pressures of Korean schools, while offering them chances of better life.”
Korea’s troubled economy has driven the explosive growth in overseas study. A decade ago graduates of local universities had little trouble finding jobs. But since the 1997 financial crisis, the economy has opened up, giving graduates with English fluency and knowledge of foreign countries a distinct advantage. In recruiting new employees, Korean companies clearly prefer graduates from midlevel U.S. universities to those from topnotch local schools like Seoul National University.
Still, the lifestyle is not for everyone. Some kids studying abroad suffer culture shock or never overcome the language barrier. Worse, some become delinquent in the absence of their fathers, who are traditionally the disciplinarians in Korean families. But it may be hardest for the fathers left behind. In July, a 36-year-old man killed himself after his wife divorced him because he had an affair with another woman while she and their children were in Canada. Many father geese seek comfort in one another. Men with families living in New Zealand recently formed an online support group that eventually became an offline drinking and outing club. “Instead of returning to empty homes after work, we meet and talk about our families in New Zealand,” says Ju So Jung. They even plan to form a choir and perform for their families in New Zealand this winter.
For most, the payoff is worth the pain. “Our family will have to endure bitter separation for maybe a couple more years,” says Chung. “But my children will enjoy a good life for a much longer period.” And they won’t even have to fly south for the winter.
