[WHY] Does calling young Koreans the 'MZ generation' oversimplify their differences?

Different generations as seen in the West [GETTY IMAGES]

 
In the United States and much of Europe, generational labels like baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z and Alpha are largely defined by birth-year cohorts and global cultural shifts: postwar affluence, the PC revolution, the internet age and the rise of smartphones.
 
But for many Koreans, the labels don’t just refer to when you were born — they also indicate what you lived through.
 
These generational tags are everywhere — in marketing campaigns, office chatter, even political speeches.
 
But not all of these labels are universally appreciated.
 

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“My uncle likes to suggest my sister and I behave a certain way because he thinks we’re both members of the ‘MZ generation,’ but we’re almost 7 years apart in age,” says Lee Ji-su, a 23-year-old college student in Seoul. “Just the fact that he thinks we’re part of the same generation shows how little my uncle understands anyone younger.”
 
The term “MZ generation” refers loosely to South Koreans born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s — essentially, millennials and Gen Z combined. Coined by marketing professor Kim Nan-do of Seoul National University, the phrase was meant to describe a rising cohort of digital natives who are socially conscious, tech-savvy, and trend-sensitive.
 
It quickly became a favorite among advertisers and media outlets. But to many young Koreans, the term feels like a catchall that oversimplifies the wide range of experiences between people 10 or even 20 years apart.
 
Casual use of the label by older Koreans has sparked anger among people in their early forties and younger, who say the term is too often used as shorthand for “clueless.”
 

Forged by memories, not ages
 
One of the most recognizable age-based groups in Korea is the “386 generation,” which is widely credited with bringing down the country’s military dictatorship and ushering in a new era of civil liberties.  
 
Their moniker was coined in the 1990s to refer to then-thirty-something-year-old Koreans who were born in the 1960s and attended university during the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s.
 
Some observers later referred to this cohort as the “586 generation” in an attempt to reflect changes in their political outlook and values as they pass middle age and approach retirement.
 
Another label, the “IMF generation,” refers to those who came of age during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, colloquially known in Korea as the “IMF crisis” due to the economic restructuring and austerity measures that Seoul agreed to implement in return for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
 
This massive recession, which brought an end to three decades of uninterrupted economic growth in Korea and triggered mass layoffs and bankruptcies, led to young people at the time more cautious about jobs and money than their parents.
 
Korean sociologists such as Choi Set-byol see these changes as defining cohorts.
 
“Dramatic social changes also explain heterogeneous experiences that each generation had to encounter,” she wrote in her study, “Korea’s Generation Chronology.”
 

Vice Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Song Myeong-dal, fifth from right in the front row, poses for a group photograph at a forum in Sejong to hear thoughts from members of the ″MZ generation″ on fishing policies on May 9. Use of the term is common in marketing, policy and media circles in Korea. [NEWS1]

 
The belief that the period in which a person was born determines their outlook on life and values is reflected in numerous surveys of Koreans.
 
In a 2022 study by Hankook Research, 57 percent of respondents believed it's appropriate to classify members of society by generation, while 72 percent considered the use of cohorts according to the year of their birth to be relevant.
 
Further, over 60 percent said they felt generational grouping helps people understand intra-generational traits and fosters solidarity.
 
'Don't lump us in the same basket'
 
Part of the frustration with the “MZ” label stems from the significant changes that have occurred in just the past two decades, during which members of this broadly defined group transitioned from adolescence to young adulthood.
 
Millennials in Korea — often defined as those born from the early 1980s to mid-1990s — still remember the early era of online connectivity, which included maintaining profiles on social media website Cyworld and long nights at PC bangs, or internet cafes that often served as communal computer game lounges.
 
A 2024 study of 1,084 Korean public sector employees by Park So-hee and Park Sun-young found millennials are more team-oriented, innovative and personally driven than older civil servants, while placing less importance on hierarchy.
 
On the other hand, members of Gen Z, which sociologists define as having been born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, have lived most of their lives in a world of smartphones, short-form videos and non-face-to-face communication.
 

 
Common Gen Z traits that became apparent after the Covid-19 pandemic include their willingness to undertake traditionally shared experiences, such as dining and travel, alone.
 
Given these differences, most millennials and Gen Z feel they have little in common with each other.  
 
According to a 2022 survey of 978 adults between the ages of 18 and 42 by Hankook Research, 43 percent of millennial respondents said their group should not be lumped together with Gen Z.
 
Of Gen Z respondents, 61 percent said they did not think one label should be used to categorize themselves and millennials.
 
Kim Min-seok, a 35-year-old office worker, concurred.
 
“It’s weird to be lumped in with people who were in diapers when 9/11 happened,” he said, referring to the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. “The experiences we went through as we grew up are too disparate for us to be seen as part of the same generation.”
 

 
Furthermore, while sociologists understand the term “MZ” to refer to people between the ages of 18 and 42, another survey by Hankook Research revealed that most respondents believed it meant people between the ages of 16 and 30 — essentially just Gen Z.
 
A useful label nonetheless
 
Despite growing criticism, the “MZ” label isn’t going away anytime soon. The term is convenient — for companies trying to market to younger consumers, for politicians trying to seem in tune with concerns of youth, and for older people trying to make sense of shifting norms.
 
Furthermore, millennials and Gen Z share certain characteristics, despite their broad age ranges.
 
The term "sampo," which refers to the inaccessibility of three hallmarks of adult success in Korea — job security, marriage, and homeownership — has been used by both millennial and Gen Z Koreans to describe personal hurdles they face as the country’s economy slows down.
 
Further, both generations are marked by a gender-based political divide.
 
Exit polls in the June 2025 presidential election showed that 58 percent of women in their twenties and 57 percent of women in their thirties voted for current liberal President Lee Jae Myung.
 

Lee Jun-seok, the minor Reform Party's candidate in the June presidential election, shakes hands during a campaign event in Jongno District, central Seoul, on May 25. According to a joint exit poll by terrestrial broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS, over a third of men in the 20s voted for him compared to just 4 percent of women in the same age group. [NEWS1]

 
However, the same polls revealed that roughly 74 percent of men in their twenties had voted for conservative candidates Kim Moon-soo or Lee Jun-seok. Similarly, around 60 percent of men said they had picked one of the two candidates over Lee.
 
Experts say that economic pressures upon Korea’s youth partially drive this gender-based political divide.
 
In particular, young men say they feel disadvantaged by policies they perceive as putting them at a disadvantage in the job market, such as military conscription, as well as gender equality programs and policies that they view as favoring women.
 
Mirror of Korea’s rapid change
 
Korea has undergone more change in the past 70 years than many countries do in a century: postwar devastation, dictatorship, democratization and a tech-fueled rise to global influence.
 
With each shift, new generations emerged — shaped not just by age, but by hardship, protest and transformation.
 
Still, some are calling for a rethink — not a rejection of generational identity, but a more nuanced approach that reflects the complex realities of growing up in such a fast-changing society.
 
“Every generation has its struggles,” says the 23-year-old Lee. “But we’re not all the same just because we’re under 40. That’s the part people forget.”
 

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]