A New Approach to Daily Life in Seoul
For a 30-year-old office worker identified as Ms Jeong, living alone in Seoul’s Mapo-gu district, cleaning used to be something squeezed in between work and exhaustion. Since 2023, she has chosen a different approach. Once or twice a month, she opens an app on her smartphone, selects a date and time, and a cleaner arrives to scrub every corner of her small studio apartment measuring less than 50 square meters. The three-hour session costs her 50,000 won, approximately $34.
Ms Jeong explains her reasoning simply. “There is no real difference between me cleaning and someone else doing it,” she said. “But the time I save I can spend watching a movie or exercising. That makes a big difference.”
What was once a luxury largely reserved for the wealthy has quietly entered the everyday lives of young South Koreans. For many in their 20s and 30s, especially those living alone or managing the many demands of work and life, outsourcing housework has become a practical way to buy time in a society that never seems to slow down.
Understanding Time Poverty
The phenomenon driving this trend is what sociologists call time poverty, a state in which individuals are unable to complete all required tasks within a day without cutting into sleep or leisure. According to data from a regional research institute, young job seekers in South Korea spend an average of 14 hours a day preparing for employment. When eight hours of sleep are deducted, only about two hours remain each day for everything else, including meals, commuting, housework, self-care, and rest.
This chronic time shortage has fundamentally altered how young South Koreans approach daily living. From apartment cleaning and refrigerator organization to laundry, folding towels, trash disposal, and even dog walking, domestic labor is increasingly being ordered in hourly increments through smartphone apps.
“When you factor in the physical fatigue and time required for housework, many people conclude that outsourcing offers greater value than the cost,” said Dr Seo Yong-gu, a business professor at Sookmyung Women’s University.
The pressure weighs especially heavily on young adults, who face expectations to graduate quickly, secure stable employment, achieve independence, and demonstrate constant progress. High grades, rapid employment, and self-sufficiency are no longer milestones achieved in sequence, but demands imposed simultaneously. With only 24 hours in a day, something has to give.
The Rise of Single-Person Households
Demographic changes have accelerated this trend. According to South Korean government data released in December 2025, the number of one-person households reached 8.045 million in 2023, representing a 6.3% increase from the previous year. Their share of all households has risen steadily from just over 30% in 2019 to more than 36% in 2023.
This shift has fueled the rapid growth of home-service platforms offering on-demand domestic labor. Dr Choi Jong-ryeol, a sociology professor at Keimyung University, notes the significance of this change. “For single-person households responsible for all chores alone, these services have become reliable allies,” he explained.
LaundryGo, a laundry service that launched in 2019, exemplifies this market growth. Company data shows the company’s annual revenue jumped more than 30 times, from 1.6 billion won to nearly 50 billion won, within four years. Young consumers appear to be driving much of that expansion, with one service finding that people in their 20s account for nearly 40% of its users, the second-highest share among all age groups.
Beyond Laziness: Strategic Time Management
The stereotype that young people use these services out of laziness misses the point, according to those who actually use them. Ms Jeong emphasizes that it is about managing time efficiently. “Usually, it takes hours, sometimes a whole day, to clean up this small place,” she said. “Rather than spending my precious day off on cleaning, I use that time to build other assets, such as studying investments or researching properties. That single day of time can be worth much more.”
Surveys confirm this perspective. Users of domestic services most often cite time savings, a desire to focus on personal development, and the inefficiency of doing housework in small living spaces as their main reasons for outsourcing. In a recent survey by Trendmonitor, more than 64% of respondents in their 20s said they were interested in services that save time, the highest proportion of any age group.
This strategic approach to time management connects to broader economic anxieties facing South Korean youth. With housing prices in Seoul exceeding 2 billion won and monthly salaries often insufficient to save for a down payment, many young people feel compelled to use every available minute to improve their financial position.
The Emotional Toll of Clutter
Postponing domestic labor on a busy day often comes with an emotional cost. As clutter piles up and living spaces deteriorate, many young people report feelings of guilt, self-blame, and depression. This creates a sense that they are failing at even the basics of adult life.
Kim, a 24-year-old university student in Busan who recently began using housekeeping services, described this struggle. “Between classes, teaching part-time, preparing for exams, and job applications, housework was the first thing to fall off the list,” he said. “At first, I thought, ‘Am I really incapable of managing something as simple as housework?’ That thought alone was exhausting.”
A clinical psychology expert noted that in an uncertain job market, the areas young people can control are limited. One of the few tangible areas they can control is their living environment. “Small homes become messy very quickly, and an unclean space can directly affect mood and quality of life,” the expert said. “Outsourcing housework may reflect a desire to regain control over at least one part of life and most of all, take care of themselves.”
“Once my place was clean, it finally felt like somewhere I could rest,” Kim said. “The difference in how I felt after coming home was immediate.”
Visible Signs of the Trend
The outsourcing culture has become visible in urban environments. Around university districts, it is now common to see large trash bags hanging from doorknobs, left by residents for waste-sorting services that collect and dispose of garbage on their behalf. On Karrot, a popular app typically used for buying and selling secondhand items locally, posts looking to hire someone to take care of or walk users’ dogs flood the platform.
This shift reflects a broader change in how young South Koreans view the relationship between money, time, and well-being. In a society increasingly described in terms such as time efficiency and value per minute, time has overtaken money as the most precious resource for many young adults.
Economic Context and Future Anxiety
The outsourcing trend cannot be separated from the broader economic challenges facing South Korea’s younger generation. South Korea has one of the world’s highest rates of elderly poverty among advanced economies. According to the OECD, 40.4% of South Koreans aged 66 and over lived in relative poverty as of 2020, defined as earning less than half the national median income. This is nearly three times the OECD average.
For many young South Koreans, this statistic represents a harrowing glimpse of their own future if they fail to build financial security now. The fear of elderly poverty, combined with stagnating wages and skyrocketing housing costs, has created a generation focused intensely on asset accumulation and financial independence.
This anxiety manifests in various behaviors beyond housework outsourcing. A growing number of young South Koreans are turning to aggressive investment tactics, seeking financial stability in the face of an uncertain future. Social media platforms are filled with investment-related content, with millions of posts tagged with Korean terms for investment strategies.
The Investment Culture
One popular method is gap investment, which leverages Korea’s unique jeonse lease system. Under a jeonse lease, tenants pay a lump-sum deposit, often 60 to 80% of the home’s value, instead of monthly rent. This system allows investors to acquire properties by paying only the difference between the market price and the jeonse deposit.
Young professionals like 28-year-old Kim spend every weekend walking over 20 kilometers each day to study neighborhoods, their environments, schools, and proximity to public transportation. “Using all my free time to study and go for property viewing is exhausting,” she said. “I’m sacrificing my youth so I won’t suffer in old age. And to have that stable life is absolutely impossible with my current salary.”
Cultural Comparisons and Global Context
While the intensity may be unique to South Korea, the trend of outsourcing domestic labor reflects broader patterns in developed economies. Academic research on housework participation in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States shows that educational attainment generally correlates with reduced time spent on domestic labor for single women across all three cultures.
However, the research also reveals important cultural differences. Unlike in the United States, where higher education levels consistently predict reduced housework participation for married women, Japanese married women tend to perform housework regardless of their educational attainment. This suggests that traditional gender expectations remain stronger in East Asian societies, making time even scarcer for working women who maintain most domestic responsibilities.
In Western countries, working parents have also increasingly turned to apps and services to outsource domestic tasks. The fundamental driver remains similar, the desire to reclaim time from endless chores to focus on career advancement, family relationships, and personal well-being. What distinguishes the South Korean case is the intensity of the time pressure and the explicit framing of outsourcing as a survival strategy rather than a luxury.
Expert Predictions for the Future
Experts say the trend toward outsourcing housework is unlikely to slow. Dr Seo Yong-gu from Sookmyung Women’s University believes the economic logic is compelling. “When you factor in the physical fatigue and time required for housework, many people conclude that outsourcing offers greater value than the cost,” he explained.
Dr Choi Jong-ryeol from Keimyung University sees this as part of a longer-term demographic shift. “This shift has fueled the rapid growth of home-service platforms offering on-demand domestic labor,” he said. As single-person households continue to grow and dual-income families become the norm, the market for these services will likely expand further.
The psychological benefits also play a role. By regaining control over their living environment and reclaiming time for self-care and personal development, young South Koreans are finding ways to cope with the intense pressures of modern society. For many, the cost of hiring help is outweighed by the preservation of mental health and the ability to focus on long-term goals.
The Bottom Line
For South Korea’s young adults, outsourcing housework is not a sign of indulgence or laziness. It is a strategy, a way to preserve time, mental health, and a sense of control in a society that rarely slows down. The trend reflects deeper structural changes in Korean society, including the rise of single-person households, intense competition for stable employment, and growing anxiety about economic security in an aging population.
- Single-person households reached 8.045 million in 2023, up 6.3% from the previous year
- Young job seekers spend an average of 14 hours daily preparing for employment
- People in their 20s account for nearly 40% of users for domestic service apps
- More than 64% of respondents in their 20s are interested in services that save time
- LaundryGo revenue grew more than 30 times in four years, from 1.6 billion to 50 billion won
- South Korea has one of the highest elderly poverty rates among OECD nations at 40.4%
- Typical cleaning sessions cost approximately 50,000 won for three hours of service
