Policy towards the Young Overseas Koreans is a new field of study in South Korea, 7.2 million overseas Korean community is rapidly changing its generation from the first Korea-born immigrated people to foreign-born new generation. The new generation is quite different from their parents in many aspects such as loyalty, economic success, proficiency of mother tongue and even networks with their brethren. Therefore, the policy towards them becomes important in recent years in more globalized South Korea. A semi-government organization such as Overseas Korean Foundation has held annual Young Overseas Koreans Forum, and invited less than 100 young Korean leaders all over the world every year. However, a comprehensive policy by the central government has never tried.
This paper is on the policy towards the Young Overseas Koreans. It first analyzes importance of them in the Korea’s global agenda, and raises questions on the definition such as scopes of the meaning. Then, several routes for the policy options are discussed based on a new definition matrix. Only under these routes, policies can be easily formulated in the realm of Young Overseas Koreans. Secondly, the paper suggests a new direction of the policy. Because of restraints of budget and understanding in administration, focus on the Young Overseas Koreans who are returning to Korea for recruits, job hunting or even further studies are suggested as a policy option. In particular, Korean-Chinese Students Network in Korea(KCN) can be a good example for Korea’s policy towards the Young Overseas Koreans. It is because they are easy to get access, and can be future cores (leaders) in the overseas Korean networks.
In conclusion, the paper focuses on the importance of research assistance by the government for better policy options. Also, not only as an effective tool for public diplomacy, but also as high-skilled workforce, Young Overseas Koreans will be more focused in policy as well as academic research.