I've heard of the ridiculously low wages in South-Korea. For example 7-elevens etc are staffed by students doing part-time work for a pittance. It's unfortunate, but what can you do.
In Japan, you'll see retirement-age men working silly pretend-jobs, like guarding a hole in the sidewalk and telling passersby to avoid it, as if the fence wasn't enough.
It's actually worse than that. Most students don't get part time work (most people I know here never worked before finishing their post-grad university). When you see someone young in a 7-11 they are probably stuck there. Education has such a huge social force behind it and every job is very competitive so you get people with masters degrees working sales jobs. For the folk who never did well enough to get into university they are often stuck in minimum wage jobs for life. No safety net means most people rely on their children to retire, if you were infertile or your children died you are probably going to be sorting garbage when you are 80 in -10°C temperatures. I stopped to talk to this old woman on the street yesterday, she's one of millions in her situation.
South Korea takes capitalism pretty seriously. Competition is real here and failure is ultimate. Japan still has a fairly decent safety net with their pension schemes. South Korea, however, does not and relies on children to deliver for their parents. When children don't (because they are poor, they died, they abandon their parents) it all falls apart and the government doesn't step in (which provides a pretty strong incentive to succeed).
In Japan, you'll see retirement-age men working silly pretend-jobs, like guarding a hole in the sidewalk and telling passersby to avoid it, as if the fence wasn't enough.