1/THREAD What is going on with gender relations in South Korea?
2/Of some major countries polled, South Korea has the highest percent of people saying that there is a great deal or fair amount of tension between men and women: ipsos.com
3/ South Korea also has the lowest birth rate in the OECD. It seems reasonable to assume that this is partially due to the breakdown in gender relations because virtually all births are legitimate and decline in marriage closely tracks falling fertility. archive.is
5/ Men in South Korea are increasingly opposed to feminism: cnn.com
6/And lament the fact that they have to be drafted for the military and women don't:
7/ There seems to be growing political between young men and young women with the most recent election commonly being referred to in the western press as the "incel election" english.hani.co.kr
8/ We can also see the gender divide when looking at views on same sex marriage: reddit.com
9/There are some common explanations for what has caused the breakdown of relations in the west that clearly don't apply to Korea. Korea has a very low obesity rate.
10/ Porn is banned in Korea:
11/Korea also was mandatory military service so theories about women being turned on by war, or soldiers don't seem to apply here: en.wikipedia.org
12/Koreans seem to place a high value on their appearance, by some estimates having one of the highest rates of plastic surgery in the world: archive.is
13/ Korea has a stereotype for gaming a lot but it doesn't seem to stick out much when looking at data: infographicsarchive.com
14/ Koreans are stereotyped for spending a lot of time in school but they don't seem to be an extreme outlier in this regard either. In 2020 they had an average of 13.7 years of school the same as Ireland. In addition, at ages 25-65 they still had the largest degree gap in favor or males. oecd-ilibrary.org.
15/ Some people seem to think that Korea has a pretty strong feminist movement but I couldn't find that to be the case. South Korea is less feminist than average. ipsos.com
16/ It also has one of the higher percentages of people saying that men are more capable than women on average.
17/ Statistics about feminism in Korea from Wikipedia.
18/ It seem like women in America (and probably most other western countries) are more supportive of feminism. pewresearch.org
19/ Korea seems to have less women in parliament at 19% than most other western countries so if there is a feminist movement it doesn't seem very successful.
20/Another common explanation is that women are longer interested in men because of their increased economic opportunity but they have highest gender gap in the OECD so it must be complicated than that x.com
21/ Now I couldn't find very good data about the gender gap by age in Korea, but this graph from Statista makes it seem like it is considerably smaller when people are at reproductive age. statista.com
22/ Now one thing that may stunt young men's careers is the mandatory military service that keeps them out of the workplace for 18-24 months. pulitzercenter.org
23/ My impression is that Korea gives a lot of status based on age. So it is possible gerontocracy could be keeping young people down. Coincidentally Korea has the highest percentage of people saying that there is lots of tension between the young and the old.
24/ As an aside, Koreans rank pretty high on all of these questions, even the one about tension between different races so maybe should be taken with a grain of salt.
25/So what is unique about Korea? There is a massive bubble of excess males with the peak reaching marriage age in the past couple of years as fertility fell to record lows: theconversation.com
26/Other than China, Korea has the most extreme male bubble and it peaked before that of any other country. hphr.org
27. Having an excess of males is obviously bad for men's dating prospects, but having a bunch of sexually frustrated men around isn't good for women either. In the US states with more men seem to have higher rape rates: psychologytoday.com
28/ It does seem that Korean women are treated pretty badly. In this study 80% reported being sexually harassed in the workplace, and most men admitted to being violent with their partner in surveys. eastasiaforum.org
29/Anecdotally, there seems to be a big problem with illegally filming in Korea: time.com
30/ Looking at journalists interviews with Koreans, fear of men seems to be one reason why women aren't dating. I'm sure extreme violence is low, but the average young Korean woman is probably dealing with a lot of sexually resentful men. pulitzercenter.org
31/ So my overall theory for messed up gender relations in Korea is that it is a result of this bubble of excess males making men more resentful and turning women off dating.
32/ It almost seems like Korea is sexist enough to make women hate men, but still free enough to not force women to marry and have kids creating a very low birth rate. Mandatory conscription also might play a role but IDK how much this is all conjecture and should be taken with a grain of salt.
33/ If my theory is true, the relationship between the sexes should improve as the excess males age out of prime marriage age. We should also see other Asian countries gender relations get worse as their excess males peak.
34/ I am not Korean, have never been and don't speak any Korean except for annyeong which I learned from Arrested Development. If you are Korean (or anybody else) and you think I got things wrong, please let me know! This was just a cursory glance at the issue anyways...
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