| Yun Hee-suk | |||||||||||
| Native Name Lang: | ko | ||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 7 February 1970 | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Seoul, South Korea | ||||||||||
| Citizenship: | South Korean | ||||||||||
| Office1: | Member of the National Assembly | ||||||||||
| Constituency1: | Seocho A | ||||||||||
| Term Start1: | 30 May 2020 | ||||||||||
| Term End1: | 13 September 2021 | ||||||||||
| Predecessor1: | Lee Hye-hoon | ||||||||||
| Successor1: | Cho Eun-hee | ||||||||||
| Party: | People Power | ||||||||||
| Otherparty: | UFP (2020) | ||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | Seoul National University Columbia University | ||||||||||
| Occupation: | Economist, politician | ||||||||||
| Signature: | Yun Hee-suk signature.svg | ||||||||||
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Yun Hee-suk (born 7 February 1970) is a South Korean economist and politician. She was the Member of the National Assembly for Seocho A constituency from 2020 to 2021.
She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in economics from Seoul National University.[1] [2] [3] She had also obtained a doctorate in economics at Columbia University.[1] [2] [3]
Prior to entering politics, Yun worked as a researcher and a professor at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), specialising labour, finance, income, welfare and middle class issues.[4] Within the KDI, she also served as the Head of Department of Finance and Welfare Policy Research.[4] She was also one of few women promoted from doctor to department head at the KDI.[4] During this period, she harshly criticised the economic policy of the President Moon Jae-in.[1] [2] [3]
Prior to the 2020 election, Yun was brought into the newly formed conservative United Future Party (UFP).[1] [2] [3] She was then selected the UFP candidate for Seocho A constituency,[1] [5] replacing the incumbent Lee Hye-hoon who had moved to Dongdaemun 2nd constituency. In the election on 15 April, she received 62.60%, defeating the ruling Democratic candidate Lee Jung-keun.[1] [3]
On 30 July, she delivered a speech at the National Assembly Proceeding Hall, known as "I'm a lessee."[6] [7] During the speech, she criticised the ruling Democratic Party for the newly passed 3 Rental Acts.[6] [7] This speech was praised by another UFP MPs i.e. Hwangbo Seung-hee and Park Soo-young.[7] On 6 August, Realmeter analysed that the speech helped the UFP to gain more supports.[8]
She was widely considered a potential candidate for the 2021 leadership election.[9]
Yun is economically liberal.[1] She is harshly critical towards the President Moon Jae-in, accusing his economic policy as "populism" since a researcher of the KDI.[1] [2] [3] This gave her a nickname "Populism Fighter (포퓰리즘 파이터)".[1] [2] [3] [10]
The main policies that she is criticising are minimum wage increase, 52-hour workweek and real estate policies.[5] [10] As an example, for the minimum wage, she cited that while Japan had increased 3% per year during a decade, South Korea has increased 30% within 2 years, in which she mentioned that labour forces like part-time and/or temporary workers will be damaged.[11] She also accused that Moon's economic policy will lead the country to be like Venezuela or Argentina.[11]
She has a sceptical view towards Keynesian economic policies adopted by the President Moon, mentioning that the policy is actually "impossible and nonsense".[11] She also added that South Korea needs a leadership like Margaret Thatcher.[10] [11]
During a parliamentary speech on 30 July 2020, Yun criticised the education policy of Moon's government.[12] [13] She cited an example of her elder sister who had already given up for mathematics during her school life.[12] [13] She believes that this kind of problem was occurred due to the standardised education system.[12] [13] In order to overcome this issue, she had suggested an idea, which is that an artificial intelligence (AI) provides exercises that are suitable for each student.[12] [13] In fact, this idea was once applied at the Introduction to Probability and Statistics subject at the KDI and no one failed at the subject.[13]
She also analysed that the current South Korean education system has failed to innovate due to high restrictions towards e-learning and strong objections from teachers and lecturers.[12] [13]