64.1% against Moon: Why young men turn against President?
President Moon Jae-in Korea Times file
President Moon Jae-in's approval rating fell last week after a slight gain a week earlier, due largely to growing dissatisfaction among younger men over his policies, including introducing alternatives to mandatory military service, a poll showed Monday.
The approval rating came to 48.5 percent last week, down from 49.5 percent in the previous week, according to a Realmeter survey conducted between Dec. 10-14 on 2,509 people aged over 19.
Disapproval rating stood at 46.8 percent, up 1.6 percentage points from a week earlier.
The approval rating among men in their 20s recorded 29.4 percent, the lowest across all age groups regardless of the gender of the respondents. Their disapproval rating reached the highest of 64.1 percent.
The women in their 20s, in contrast, retained their support for Moon with a rating of 63.5 percent, highest in all age groups.
Realmeter said the result reflects that younger men, who used to be considered Moon's core supporters, are no longer in the category and may have turned away from him.
"The recent moves toward alternative measures to mandatory military service for conscientious objectors, and other related policies, may have affected the poll result," the pollster noted.
The approval rating of the ruling Democratic Party slid 1.2 percentage points to 37 percent over the same period, marking the lowest level since late January of 2017. The figure for the main opposition Liberty Korea Party stayed almost unchanged at 24.1 percent.
The survey had a margin of error of 2.0 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level. (Yonhap)