The Seoul Metropolitan Government released on January 13 the results of converting the policy effects of Seoul Youth Centers into monetary value. The total was 108 billion won, about 5.02 times the budget invested. The analysis covered project results from January 2024 to September 2025, and was calculated through in-depth interviews with center staff and interviews and surveys of 1,404 young people who had used the centers.
Youth policy has long been evaluated by how many programs were created. The first measures focused on the youth generation date back to the 1998 comprehensive measures on unemployment, and policies have continued to accumulate since then. Among documents related to youth employment produced from 2008 to 2025 according to the Presidential Archives, 263 have jobs, employment, hiring, or unemployment in their titles. Yet what those many policies changed in young people's lives, and by how much, has mostly remained only as satisfaction scores.
The item that took the largest share in this analysis was workplace adjustment support. 49.44 billion won. It is the converted value of the effect of helping young people settle into their jobs and lowering turnover rates through counseling, communities, and mentoring. It means a larger value came from helping people hold on after getting a job than from getting them employed.
Second was time spent searching for policies. The time spent looking around for what support exists fell by about 1.48 hours a month on average, and that value was set at 20.01 billion won. Next were 8.87 billion won for increased balanced living time, 5.07 billion won in cost savings from providing youth spaces, 3.03 billion won for employment and startup education, and 490 million won for early settlement programs in Seoul. Also presented as outcomes were 8.19 billion won for enhanced sense of belonging and 3.95 billion won for increased social life time.
A look at the items reveals what youth centers actually do. They are far from large expenditures such as startup funds or hiring subsidies. They make a place to ask questions, offer a spot to sit, and listen when someone wants to quit.
The OECD noted in a 2024 report that 71% of Korea's spending on active labor market policies for young people is concentrated in hiring incentives, with 15.0% for startups and 12.4% for training. What this analysis points to is an area with almost no position in that allocation table.
A difference also appeared between places with spaces and places without. Seoul Youth Centers are set up in 16 autonomous districts, and young people living in districts with centers had higher pride in and sense of belonging to their area than young people in districts without them. The share who answered that they can start and maintain safe relationships in the center community was also higher. However, an analysis distinguishing whether this difference comes from the centers or from conditions the districts already had has not been released.
The denominator supporting the total, that is, the actual budget amount invested, was not specified in the announcement. That is why it is hard to read the 5 times figure as a fixed rate of return based on the multiple alone. The unit prices used to convert the amounts by sector must also be disclosed for the next round of discussion to be possible.
Still, the value of this analysis lies elsewhere. It is that a framework for talking about youth policy with performance indicators in place of satisfaction has been put forward for the first time.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said it plans to apply the 31 performance indicators drawn from this analysis across youth center projects. Kim Chul-hee, director of the Future Youth Planning Office, said the city has laid a foundation to quantify and evaluate youth policy as social value rather than perceived levels, and that it will use this to strengthen center functions and develop policies. The start of the year is when local governments nationwide finalize their youth policy budget proposals.
What is changing is the direction of the question. Until now the report card for youth policy has been fixed on how many people were placed in jobs. What these figures pointed to most strongly was the time spent staying beside young people so they could remain in those positions. For young people in the districts among Seoul's 25 that still have no center, when that presence arrives becomes the practical task of this year.
