Upcoming social developments in 2023

By Mark Peterson

I'll leave the political forecasts to others, but I want to focus on social issues. Let's look at social trends and predict where things might go in 2023. And good riddance to 2022, a really awful year ― the third year of the COVID pandemic. Maybe I need to admit that this view of 2022 is highly subjective ― the fact that it is perhaps the final year of the pandemic is a positive thing ― if, indeed, it turns out to be the final year of the pandemic. There is hope, at this point, that 2023 will be a better year.

So let's look ahead to 2023. This is not going to be hard to do ― the trends in Korea society are very clear. Some of these trends are easily judged as good developments, but others are clearly problematic.

On the positive side first, there is obvious progress on the gender front. Some may disagree, but I see the advancement of women continuing apace in the new year. We see families are preferring daughters at the birth of a child now, in contrast to the traditional "son preference." We see the trend in taking civil service and foreign service exams ― 70 percent of those successful in taking the foreign service exam are women. Women continue to find success in medicine, education and now law and diplomacy.

I think these trends are part of a positive movement in Korea that can be seen as moving away from "patrilineality" ― a concept much clearer in Korean than in English. The term "bu-gye-sa hoe" conveys clearly a society dominated by males, particularly the male lines of ascent and descent in the extended family. The English term "patriarchy" is often misused but it conveys a similar meaning. Most Koreans these days agree that society has left the male-dominated aspects of society behind ― that we are in a new era where women are not to be treated as lesser in any way. Most agree that the "bu-gye" society is in the rear-view mirror.

Daughters are preferred over sons. The household registers can now be headed up by a woman. Women are asserting equal rights in many areas of society.

In this regard, to this point, I am a "voice in the wilderness" crying that the whole approach to family will become radically changed. Changed from one of recognizing the male relatives as "chin" (intimate and real), and the female relatives as "oe" (outsiders, alien). I think Korean society will dismantle the structures of the patrilineal family and reconstruct family relationships with equal intimacy for the mother's line as well as the father's line. No longer will it be imperative to go to the "keunjip" ("big house" ― that of the patrilineal eldest son) for ceremonies. In fact, we are already seeing the ceremonies diminishing in importance and elaborateness. This will continue, and mother's lines ― mother's ancestors ― will gradually become more recognized and more important.

The physical representation of the family, the jokbo, once the list of all the male relatives, will gradually be replaced by bilateral reckoning of kinship, and Korea will look at all relatives, male and female, with equal importance. Korea did this once ― up until the end of the 17th century when the "family tree" looked like a family tree, literally, with branches for all ascending lines, male and female. Korea called it the "pal gojo-do" ― a chart of the eight great-great-grandfathers. In other words, exactly like a pedigree chart commonly used in America and Europe.

Korea will continue to lay blame, improperly in my view, at the feet of Confucianism, as they criticize the male-dominated practices of the past. They will continue to lessen their performance of ancestor ceremonies, and they will criticize things seen as "Confucian" ― including many good things, such as the role of the "seonbi" (scholar) in Korea historically.

Criticizing Confucianism for all the things wrong with Korea is a trend that will continue in spite of the fact that Confucianism for over a thousand years flourished in Korea within a balanced, non-patrilineal society. It has only been the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries where Korean Confucianism became Chinese-style Confucianism and Korea lost its balance.

On the negative side, the "anti-family" elements in Korea will continue to grow. Chief among these is the two-pronged problem of (1) not marrying, and (2) not having children.

I was concerned, greatly, for Korean society, in the late 1990s when Korea lost its balance in the rampant practice of selective abortions of females. But Korean society found its way to quit the practice for very practical reasons ― shortages of brides and mothers. And Korea even swung away from "son preference" that had been so dominant a feature of Korean society, to actually preferring to have a daughter.

Now, will Korea find its way again? And start to marry and reproduce at a reasonable rate? I hope so. But I don't see it happening soon. I'll write about this again next year and see if we have made any progress.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.