Daily Life in North Korea: The Songbun System and Social Stratification
Understanding daily life in North Korea requires understanding songbun—the hereditary loyalty classification system that determines access to virtually every material resource and opportunity in the DPRK. Developed under Kim Il-sung in the 1950s and 1960s, the songbun system categorizes the entire population into hierarchical groups based on their ancestors' perceived loyalty to the Kim family regime. This system, combined with geographic stratification and the distribution mechanisms of the state, shapes the lived experience of North Korea's 25 million people in ways that outsiders rarely appreciate.
How the Songbun System Works
The songbun classification places North Korean families into three broad strata: the core class (haeksim gyechung), the wavering class (dongyo gyechung), and the hostile class (jeokdae gyechung). Core class families descend from those who fought with Kim Il-sung's guerrillas, who were workers or peasants in the early socialist state, or who have otherwise demonstrated multi-generational loyalty to the regime. Hostile class families include the descendants of land-owning families, those who had relatives who fled to South Korea, members of religious groups, former Japanese collaborators, and anyone whose family members were purged or executed. Classification is inherited patrilineally, though behavior by family members can result in downward reclassification. The Korea Institute for National Unification estimates that roughly 28 percent of the population falls in the core class, 45 percent in the wavering class, and 27 percent in the hostile class.
Material Consequences of Classification
Songbun classification determines where a person can live—core class members have access to Pyongyang, while hostile class members are typically confined to rural provinces. It determines educational opportunities, from access to elite universities reserved for the core class to the vocational assignments available to those in lower classifications. It affects food ration allocations, employment in sensitive or prestigious positions, and the ability to serve in military branches that offer advancement opportunities. Defector testimony consistently describes songbun as a pervasive presence in daily decision-making, from career choices to marriage prospects, since marrying across classification lines typically results in the higher-classified spouse being reclassified downward.
The Marketization of the DPRK Economy
The collapse of the Public Distribution System following the famine of the 1990s—which killed an estimated 300,000 to 800,000 people—forced the emergence of informal markets (jangmadang) that have partially eroded songbun's material rigidity. Individuals with entrepreneurial skill and access to Chinese goods or foreign currency can achieve material living standards that partly transcend their classification. This has created a new informal merchant class that does not map neatly onto the songbun hierarchy. The Kim Jong-un government has oscillated between tolerating this marketization as a necessity and periodically cracking down on market activities that generate economic independence from state distribution systems.
Information Control and Daily Surveillance
Daily life in North Korea is structured by pervasive surveillance through inminban (neighborhood watch units), party cell meetings requiring regular attendance and ideological affirmations, and the security services' network of informants. Access to outside information is a serious crime: possession of foreign media carries penalties ranging from forced labor camp assignment to execution for distribution. Despite these controls, defector accounts and research by organizations like Database Center for North Korean Human Rights indicate that access to foreign media—particularly South Korean dramas and Chinese content introduced through USB drives—has grown significantly, particularly among younger urban residents, creating a population with increasing awareness of conditions outside the DPRK.
For ongoing reporting on human rights conditions and daily life in North Korea, visit DPRK Monitor or contact our research team.