Chaebol of South Korea's top conglomerates has decreased from 2012 to 2015. Not only did their profits stop increasing, but certain chaebols such as LG, have been making losses and losing talent. Some chaebol are one large corporation while others have broken up into loosely connected groups of separate companies sharing a common name. Even in the latter case, each is almost always owned, controlled, or managed by the same family group. South Korea's chaebol are often compared with Japan's keiretsu business groupings, the successors to the pre-war zaibatsu. While the "chaebol" are similar to the "zaibatsu" (the words are cognates,
Poverty in South Korea sector to provide such services. Second, Korea’s dualistic labour market, in which a significant number of workers are hired only on temporary contracts with low wages and benefits, results in high inequality in wage income. Poverty in South Korea Poverty in South Korea has been in drastic decline since the mid-20th century, particularly the absolute poverty rate. Relative poverty was also in decline until the late 1990s, but has risen since then. While only about 2% of South Koreans are affected by absolute poverty today, about 14-15% of these 2%, are the elderly, are affected by relative poverty. Choo, Park