Matchmaker Sunwoo has spent W6 billion (about US$6 million) to develop and patent a ¡°spouse index¡± computer program it says will identify the perfect match for its customers. The index grades customers by education, job, income, physical attractiveness as well as those of their parents and siblings on a scale from zero to 100. For the index, jobs are divided into 20,000 groups, education into 1,800 groups and income into 100 groups. People¡¯s height, weight and appearance are also measured.
The points in these sectors are added to a personality attractiveness index, which grades people¡¯s sense of humor, intellectual faculties and social skills. Psychologist Lee Kyung-seong of Sungkyunkwan University took 15 years to develop the index so that now if all of a customer¡¯s information is fed into a computer, their ideal match pops up magically on the screen.
¡±Say your social and economic status score is 86.4 points. You scored 76.2 and 82 points in physical attractiveness and family background. As a result, your total scores are 83.3 points. We will find out a perfect spouse candidate to match your level,¡± the company says. Sunwoo will use the program from June 15 and will also export it to China.
Sunwoo¡¯s ¡°Marriage Culture Institute,¡± the developer of the program, said a seven-year study of 100,000 married and divorced people it found that well-matched couples showed certain patterns, which it turned into a computer program. It claims the index will help lower the divorce rate.
There is nothing so unusual about the idea. Human beings are graded and measured wherever markets are formed. The labor market rates occupations, the work place performance, the banks credit. Based on the ratings annual salaries and incentives are graded and loan interest is determined.
A manager with a construction firm consulted a headhunting company to change his job and was advised to stay where he was because his score was no more than 68 points. The headhunters told him bluntly his current annual salary of W50 million (US$500,000) was too high for his ability since he was not proficient in English, had no technical certificates and a rather low reputation. ¡°Some headhunting companies in Korea grade customers who want to change their jobs based on expertise and foreign language skills,¡± a company official said.
Most companies rate their employees according to their achievements. Large Korean companies and foreign firms usually use merit rating to decide the salary of staff. A personnel officer with a foreign company said staff are divided into levels from A to E based on their merits, while some core talent is rated S. ¡°Using scientific techniques, we evaluate real-time how our employees do their work. Even how neatly they write reports is included in evaluation,¡± the personnel officer said.
Credit is another case in point. Financial institutions in April last year started using consumer credit bureau (CB) scores, which range from 0 to 1,000 points according credit card bill arrears and bank loans. Hwang Yun-Gyeong, a director at National Information and Credit Evaluation Inc., said CB scores will become as important as people¡¯s ID card numbers.
Is that really the shape of things to come? Song Byeong-rak, an honorary professor at Seoul National University says the rating craze is taking over because people feel the need to establish objective criteria in a globalized environment. And it will spread, no matter what problems it causes when it collides with the country¡¯s traditional culture, he adds.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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