Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Demographic gender gap in Korea's unmarried population widens
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By Lee Hae-rin
Korea’s gender imbalance among the unmarried population has widened significantly, with unmarried men outnumbering unmarried women by nearly 20 percent. This imbalance is attributed to traditional parental preferences for boys over girls, as well as sex-selective abortion practices decades ago.
According to a report released Monday by the Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), Korea’s unmarried male population is 19.6 percent greater than that of females as of 2021.
Nearly half of Korean men born in 1985 and seven out of 10 Korean men born in 1990 are unmarried, the report showed.
In contrast, only 29.1 percent of Korean women born in 1985 and 61.3 percent of those born in 1990 remain unmarried.
The demographic imbalance is especially severe in rural areas compared to Seoul and metropolitan areas.
Notably, the proportion of men who are unmarried in Seoul was 2.5 percent and in Busan 16.2 percent, whereas the figures stood much higher in southern rural regions — 34.9 percent in North Gyeongsang Province, 33.2 percent in South Gyeongsang Province and 31.7 percent in North Chungcheong Province.
Such an imbalance resulted from the decades-long difference between the number of births of boys and girls, the report pointed out.
The birth gender ratio only began to exceed the natural gender ratio in the 1970s, and remained unnaturally high into the late 1980s and mid-1990s.
The birth gender ratio refers to the number of boys born to every 100 girls. In 1970, the figure stood at 229.8 and in 1975 it reached 207.2, before dropping to 144.6 in 1990 and 107.5 in 2000.
As a result, a gender imbalance appeared in society in the early 1990s and worsened after the mid-2000s.
The difference in birth ratio is rooted in a traditional preference for boys over girls in the past, a growing desire to choose children’s gender in family planning and the availability of technologies that enable parents to know their unborn baby’s gender, such as ultrasound tests, and decide to abort the fetus if it is the undesired gender.
“Since 1970, the gender ratio of births has continued to exceed the natural gender ratio for more than 30 years,” the report said.
“When they entered the reproductive age group, they had a profound effect on the gender ratio of marriage.”
It added: “The regions where the imbalance in marriage gender ratio is particularly severe are characterized by a greater difference in birth gender ratio in the 1980s and 1990s compared to other regions."
As a result, even if all Korean men and women of reproductive age are matched and get married, over 10 percent of the male population will remain unmarried, according to the report.