North Korea – education
The education system is compulsory and free for 5-16 year olds. Compulsory schooling includes the last year of pre-school, a six-year primary school and four years of the six-year superstructure. Teaching follows key curricula, and English is compulsory from 8th grade.
OFFICIAL NAME: Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk
CAPITAL CITY: Pyongyang
POPULATION: 24,000,000 (Source: COUNTRYaah)
AREA: 122,762 km²
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE (S): Korean
RELIGION: natives’ religions 16%, syncretistic 14%, Buddhists 2%, Christians 1%, no el. unknown 67%
COIN: won
CURRENCY CODE: KPW
ENGLISH NAME: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
POPULATION COMPOSITION: Koreans 99%, Chinese and Japanese 1%
GDP PER residents: $ 621 (2013)
LIFE EXPECTANCY: men 61 years, women 67 years (2007)
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, HDI: 0.540
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, POSITION: 174
INTERNET DOMAIN NAME: .kp
North Korea is a republic in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country emerged from the ceasefire in 1953 after the Korean War and was then bombed by three years of US airstrikes. The reconstruction took place with Soviet and Chinese aid and in a highly centralized planned economy system, characterized by strict discipline and extensive personal control. Since then, partly due to self-chosen isolation and partly due to the upheavals in the socialist countries, it has become more and more isolated and stands as a poor, bone-hard military dictatorship with very few contacts with the outside world. Credible information about society and the economy is very sparse, and the following articles are based on limited and partly uncertain material.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Find two-letter abbreviation for each independent country and territory, such as KP which stands for North Korea.
North Korea – Constitution
The Constitution of the People’s Republic is from 1972 with amendments from 1992 (after which, among other things, mention of Marxism-Leninism was deleted), 1998 and 2009, while the Communist Party, the Korean Labor Party, retained its monopoly position. The real center of power is the party’s Politburo.
Legislative power is formally vested in the Supreme People’s Assembly, which has 687 members elected by universal suffrage for five years. The People’s Assembly usually meets a few times a year; between meetings, the tasks of the Assembly are performed by a standing committee.
The 1998 Constitution appointed Kim Il-Sung, who died in 1994, the President of the Republic forever.
North Korea – social conditions
The family is a model for North Korean society, so that the leader is described and perceived as a father, while the citizens are considered members of an extended family. This patriarchal social organization is also hierarchical with precisely stated roles for the individual actor. Society is fine-tuned, and the state’s control function reaches all the way down to the individual family.
The positive side of this patronage model of society has been that the system, unlike a large number of developing countries, has managed to cover the entire population’s basic needs for food, clothing, housing, health and education until an economic collapse occurred in the mid-1990’s.
These welfare benefits have in principle been available to all, but with the one-party state as mediator, the welfare system has also contributed to those in power being able to maintain their legitimacy and thus their positions of power. Current market economic measures in North Korea undermine this pattern, which is why socio-political changes and reforms can be expected in the coming years. Check youremailverifier for North Korea social condition facts.
North Korea (Health Conditions)
The outside world does not have access to statistical health information for North Korea, but in 1997 the Ministry of Health gave the Red Cross the following official picture of the country’s health conditions:
The average life expectancy is 70.3 years, and the infant mortality rate is 25.9 per year. 1000 live births. Confirmed by foreign experts, in addition to civilization diseases (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis), developing diseases in the form of diarrhea, respiratory infections, intestinal parasitic diseases, tuberculosis and in the late 1990’s due to malnutrition due to malnutrition. In contrast, no cases of AIDS or other STDs are reported.
The health care system is built according to the Soviet model with an emphasis on epidemic control. Most doctors are specialists, also at the village level. approximately 3 doctors and approximately 1 nurse per. 1000 residents All treatment is free and there are no private doctors or hospitals. There are 8177 hospitals, of which approximately 1/3 are small devices with 6-12 beds.
The country’s isolation from the rest of the world has meant that medical treatment has not been updated. No health care reforms are planned, with North Korea’s health authorities finding the country to have one of the world’s best health systems. The economic crisis of the 1990’s has led to a sharp reduction in the supply of Western medicines and modern equipment, which is almost exclusively obtained through aid organizations. Birth control pills and other contraceptives are not allowed. Traditional medicine in the form of herbal medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion make up the treatment for approximately half of the patients.
North Korea – mass media
The media is part of the state administration, and all news dissemination takes place from the official news agency, KCNA (Korean Central News Agency), founded in 1946. The largest of the country’s few dailies is the Communist Party’s Rodong Sinmun (Arbejdets Avis, founded 1946, circulation approximately 1.5 million).
The state radio service, Korean Central Broadcasting Station, broadcasts locally, nationally and internationally. In addition to the state television, Korean Central TV, there is the cultural channel Mansudae.
Both radio and television receivers are designed to receive only the national channels.
