South and North Korean per capita Income

For 20 years after the war, North Korea produced more than South Korea. Richer than the South in natural resources like coal and iron ore and it possessed more heavy industry than the agricultural South. But its rigid centralized economy and policy of chuche or self-reliance it stagnated. This combined with the loss of support from the former USSR, floods and drought it faced shortages in food, electrical power, fuel, and industrial equipment.

The South enjoyed exceptional prosperity. Due in part to its policy of enforced conglomerates called chaebols, it has become the world's 12th largest economy. The dip in 1998 caused by a major increase in worker's salaries.