Homeconomy is a newly coined term which is a combination of Home and Economy, it refers to delivery, subscription or rental goods and services which are consumed at home. “Homejok” refers to people who minimize the time spent at outside and enjoy hobbies and resolve the necessities of life at home. In other words, they are the individuals who commit to Homeconomy. According to the KB KookMin Card, the percentage of consumers who paid for Homeconomy have increased by 89.9% from 2019 to beginning of 2020. Furthermore, a survey conducted by Job Korea and Albamon in April of 2019 states that 58.6% of 1625 adults stated that they regard themselves as Homejok. Let’s find out the causes of the spread of Homeconomy.

     The first and foremost reason is due to the popularity of untact consuming. How individuals are reluctant to consume relates to consumption method. Yim Nang-Yeon (Prof. of Dept. of Psychology, Kyungsung University) said, “Social interaction requires a lot of energy and can sometimes be very stressful. Therefore, interactions with other people may result in a Ego Depletion which exhausts an energy. As a result, individuals try to avoid unnecessary interaction with others in situations when they are aware that they do not have energy on themselves.” Such psychological effect have induced untact consumption which eventually led to Homeconomy. Kim Yea-Ji (22, student) added, “I want to spend time alone at home and do not want to care about others’ attention. When I shop at the mall, how the worker approaches me and asks me questions makes me feel not only uncomfortable but awkward. As a result, I rather prefer shopping at home through online by myself because I value the time when I am by myself. I also prefer delivery food because it does not require unnecessary emotional consumption or contact rather than eating outside at the restaurants.”

     Moreover, another cause of the increase in Homeconomy is the extension of Work-Life Balance (WLB) which pursues a balanced between work and personal life. The workers especially value WLB a lot and spend most of their free time at home. According to a research conducted by Job Korea, the most preferable working environment chosen by the Millennials was WLB. Moreover, Seoul city’s research on August 2019 states that the 51.2% of activities people do during their free time is done at home such as watching Television or playing games. Koo Dong-Mo (Prof. of School of Management, Kyungpook National University) said, “In modern society, a new lifestyle where individuals value their own time more than the life in the workplace has emerged. As a result, they consider the time alone at their home very important. These are the characteristic of the generation which contributed to Homeconomy.” Kim Yong-Tae (Engineer, 26) stated, “I entered a company which guarantees WLB, so I have much free time. Consequently, I consume most time at home after coming back from office. I spend my free time exercising or watching movies at home. “

     The last reason for increase in Homeconomy is increase in the number of related platforms. Therefore, the activities which were only able to be done outside in the past are now possible at home. For example, the streaming services such as Netflix and WATCHA play have been developed which provide opportunity for people to watch various genres and historical movies and dramas at home. As such, a trend to watch movies has increase along with how a home theater project sale has increased by 14% compared to last year based on a research conducted by Prime Economy on January 2019. TheBanChan, which started in March 2019, is an online dish market operated by Dongwon Home Foods and provide side dishes to customers regularly for the customers who subscribed the service. With the emergence of such food subscription service, people can easily and freshly eat food at home without eating outside at the restaurants. Another example is home training. In the past, people had to physically go to the gym and receive personal training whereas these days, they can simply exercise at home by watching home training video posted on Youtube. Short and concise home training videos consist of simple guideline of exercise which users can follow up easily. Such increase in number of platforms related to Homeconomy contributed to accessibility of Homeconomy. Lee Jung-Hwa (33, Officer) said, “I do not feel the necessity to go outside because I can easily handle everything at home. Rather than going to gym, doing a home training by watching guideline video is much cheaper and time conserving.”

     Oh Se-Hwan (Prof. of School of Business Administration, Kyungpook National University) said, “Looking at the recent demographic, sociocultural and technological changes, I expect the Homeconomy to be a major phenomenon in our society. In particular, with the development of new technologies such as artificial intellenge, blockchain and encryption, companies expect to further enhance the user’s convenience and transaction efficiency of online commerce.”

By Lee Hyeon-Su, Reporter

hlee9602@pusan.ac.kr