By Vincent Lim
Min-Kyoung Rhee, a doctoral student at the USC School of Social Work, first became interested in the employment issues facing older adults when she was living in South Korea during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
“I observed massive unemployment and involuntary early retirement for people in their mid-40s and 50s,” she said.
Rhee wound up conducting her doctoral research on the employment plight of older Koreans—but in a different country than she expected—when she came to the United States to pursue her Ph.D.
Many Koreans migrated to the United States in the 1980s, but immigration began to decline in the early 1990s, only to pick up again in the latter part of the decade during Asia’s economic meltdown. Large concentrations of Koreans now live in major cities like Los Angeles, where she conducted her research.