VOL.95/2026.06

New Books

 

What Do Life and Death Look Like
for Single-Person Households in South Korea?

 

 

2026.06

 

 

 

In 2021, Professor Kim Su-Young, author of The Inevitable Loneliness, launched the 〈ALONE〉 project, a two-year study documenting the lives of 109 single-person households. This book brings to light the stories of 56 participants from that research. As of August 2025, South Korea officially entered an era where single-person households exceed ten million. Recognizing that living alone is a structural landscape carved out by late-industrial society, the author conceptualizes this phenomenon as a mechanism of self-production and self-reproduction.

 

Under the heavy shadows of an unstable labor market and a rapidly aging society, individuals in single-person households must live as the sole authors of their own life narratives. To maintain their social identity, they walk a precarious tightrope, burning through their own time and relationships. What constantly threatens and bleeds into their lives is loneliness. In November 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially designated loneliness as a pressing global health threat. According to the WHO, the health hazards of loneliness are as damaging as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.

 

Living alone, however, does not inherently equate to isolation or alienation. To clarify this, the author distinguishes between a “single-person household” and a “single-person family.” While those in single-person households live alone but often remain connected to their families of origin, a single-person family refers to a state where both parents have passed away and there are no family members or friends left to offer support. Professor Kim Su-Young categorized and interviewed these single-person units based on their economic, social, and cultural capital, analyzing their similarities and differences in depth. Interestingly, regardless of financial stability, the participants universally shared a profound need for consistent, intimate relationships and a vague apprehension about what happens after their death. When connections with others are severed, it takes a severe toll on both physical health and the overall quality of life. Individuals become highly vulnerable to illness, and the narrative surrounding their death becomes unstable. Strikingly, the interviewees involved in the study expressed a strong aversion to the negative, pitying gaze with which the media typically depicts lonely deaths.

 

Wishing for a dignified death, one that leaves a positive memory for others and imposes no burden on anyone, is a universal desire and a final hope. A complete, wholesome death encompasses the grand closure of oneself, the time and space one has inhabited, and the very relationships and objects that shared that journey. This should be recognized as a sacred right to dignity afforded not just to single-person households, but to all human beings. To achieve this, the author emphasizes the concept of a “communitarian embrace.” We must stop viewing someone’s passing merely as a closed case, and instead foster a society equipped with a culture and system of care that collectively mourns their existence and honors them with respect. Only then can we truly alleviate the bittersweet, isolating fear of a lonely death.

 

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, asserted that what keeps a human being alive even amidst profound suffering is the “will to meaning.” Discovering the purpose of existence, sharing it, and having it recognized by others will serve as the ultimate wisdom that bridges the gap between loneliness and isolation. The author maintains that what we truly need in our later years are relationships, community, and connection to sustain us. Caring for one another means keeping each other alive, and such life-saving relationships can fully thrive even outside the bounds of kinship. As sociologist Ray Oldenburg captured in his concept of the “third place,” whether one has a space to simply be oneself, stripped of social roles and hierarchies, while comfortably connecting with a diverse range of people serves as the true benchmark for both individual quality of life and the inclusivity of a society.

 

 

 

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Written by Jung-Ah Shin (Culture Critic, Adjunct Professor, Division of Performing Arts, Baekseok Arts University)

TV documentary writer who has scripted over 400 episodes, the author is deeply interested in the intersection of cultural content and humanistic imagination. With a love for the stories of people and the world embedded in media, she believes in the power of good content to change the world. Major publications include Elderly in Media, Elderly outside Media, Living with AI, New Media and Story-doing, Cultural Content and Transmedia, and Media Literacy Education for Digital Literacy, etc.