Opinion | South Korea’s preference for sons could see some 800,000 men unable to marry locals
- The country’s sex ratio at birth has risen significantly over the years as it continues to grapple with its record-low fertility rate
- Seoul is supporting the immigration of foreign women to marry South Korean bachelors in a bid to reverse the gender imbalance
As a demographer who over the past four decades has conducted extensive research on East Asian populations, I know that this increased number of South Korean boys will have a huge impact on South Korean society. Coincidentally, similar trends are playing out in China, Taiwan and India.
In most countries, more boys are born than girls – around 105 to 107 boys per 100 girls. That sex ratio at birth (SRB) is a near constant. The gender imbalance is likely an evolutionary adaptation to the biological fact that females live longer than males. At every year of life, men have higher death rates than women. Hence, an SRB of between 105 and 107 boys allows for roughly equal numbers of men and women when the groups reach childbearing ages.
The SRB in the United States in 1950 was 105 and was still 105 in 2021; in fact, it has been stable in the US for as long as SRB data has been gathered. In contrast, in South Korea, the SRB was in the normal range from 1950 to around 1980, but increased to 110 in 1985 and to 115 in 1990.
After fluctuating slightly at elevated levels through the 1990s and early 2000s, it returned to the biologically normal range by 2010. In 2022, South Korea’s SRB was 105 – well within the normal level. But by then, the seeds for today’s imbalance of marriage-age South Koreans were set.
A preference for sons
There are several reasons why South Korea’s SRB was out of balance for 30 years.