Later-borns more likely to succeed in Joseon

In a paper titled “Finding Sibling Effects on Passing the Civil Exam in the Late Joseon Era,” published in the March edition of the academic periodical, author Han Sang-woo looked into birth order and those who had passed the exam to find their relationship and test his hypothesis that first-borns would have been in an advantageous position to pass the state exam because they were prioritized in inheritance of family fortunes and properties. / gettyimagesbank

Historian reviews birth order, Confucian culture and eldest sons' duties

By Kang Hyun-kyung

In the Joseon Kingdom, later-born children had higher rates of passing the highly competitive state exam to select government officials than the eldest sons did, according to a recent paper published in the academic journal Korean Historical Studies.

Being introduced in 1393 and having been implemented for five centuries until 1894, the state exam was considered the ladder of success and the springboard for plum jobs in government. Only men born into the highest social strata of yangban were eligible for the test.

In a paper titled “Finding Sibling Effects on Passing the Civil Exam in the Late Joseon Era,” published in the March edition of the academic periodical, author Han Sang-woo looked into birth order and those who had passed the exam to find their relationship and test his hypothesis that first-borns would have been in an advantageous position to pass the state exam because they were prioritized in inheritance of family fortunes and properties.

Han's findings, however, defied it.

The rate for first-born sons to have passed the test stood at 9.0 percent, compared to 9.9 percent for second-borns, 10.4 percent for third-borns and 12.8 percent for fourth sons.

Han, a post-doctorate research fellow at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain, obtained the results after he looked into genealogy of four powerful families_ Andong Kim, Yeonan Lee, Jinbo Lee and Bannam Park clans_ from the 17th to 19th centuries.

He reviewed test results for 1,398 people born into the four clans to find whether they passed the state exam or not.

Every nine out of 100 members of the four clans passed the exam, making the four clans have the largest number of state exam passers.

Among the four clans, Han said, families having several sons, as opposed to only one, and later-borns had the higher rates of passing the test.

His paper debunked the conventional belief that in patriarchal Joseon, the eldest sons had the most opportunities.

In Confucianist Joseon, sons were preferred over daughters, and among sons, the eldest were entitled to various privileges in return for their family duties ― they were raised to be the leaders of their families and in charge of family rituals to serve their ancestors once their fathers passed away.

Han's findings suggest that although in an advantageous position in inheritance of family fortune, the eldest sons were distracted by various family obligations and thus unable to fully focus on preparing for the state exam.

The average age of passers was 37.9, meaning preparing and passing the exam had required the test takers to invest a lifetime and those who had no financial backing were less likely to make it.

“Life expectancy during Joseon was much shorter than today. Thus, more often than not, the eldest sons are believed to have succeeded their fathers once they passed away and became the leaders of their families when they were relatively young. They had other things to take care of and it was harder to focus on preparing for the exam,” the author wrote. “Unlike the eldest sons, later-borns could more easily focus on studying and preparing for the exam as they had no such family duties as their older brothers had.”

In addition to freedom from family obligations, Han said later-borns are also believed to have acquired knowhow on preparing for the exam from their older brothers.

According to Han, the ratio for the members of the four clans who had brothers who previously had passed the exam in passing it was five times higher than those who didn't.

Nearly 15,000 people had passed the state exam over five centuries and those selected people became power elites. The test was the key for Joseon to sustain its bureaucratic system. Although it purported to fill government posts with qualified people based on meritocracy, the state exam didn't guarantee equal opportunities for all people.