Gender discrimination in sex selective abortions and its transition in South Korea

Synopsis

Despite increased economic growth and social development, gender relations in South Korea have not progressed much. This may be due to an existing Confucian dogma in Korean society, which accords women a subordinate status. One insidious example of this gender discrimination is female selective abortion and the resulting imbalanced sex ratio. This article reviews the trends in the sex ratio at birth in Korea, and the cultural underpinnings of the preference for sons. Using evidence from successive surveys, it then demonstrates how attitudes have changed over time. Finally, it examines how the relaxation of the traditional attitude of a preference for male children is accompanied by reduced attention to other traditional beliefs, such as attending to auspicious birth years for female children.

Introduction

There is a traditional Korean folk saying that “one daughter is more than enough; three sons are still too few” (Song, 1983: 235, 1995: 263). Traditionally, parents have valued sons more highly than daughters in Korea. This is rooted in the belief that only sons can continue the lineage, support parents in their old age, and observe ancestor worship rites, while daughters leave home at marriage and cannot perform any of these important functions. Similar family systems have been noted in other Confucian cultures in East Asia, as well as some non-Confucian ones in South Asia. These societies have exhibited higher birth rates for boys because of prenatal female selective abortion or excess mortality of girls after birth (Choe, 1987, Croll, 2002, Das Gupta et al., 2003, Kim, 2004, Miller, 2001, Park and Cho, 1995, Sen, 1992, Sen, 2003, Zeng et al., 1993).

Since the 1980s, there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of boys per girl in East and South Asian countries.¹ There are two factors driving this. The first is the spread of technology for prenatal sex selection, which reduces the psychological cost of aborting daughters. The second is that all these societies have experienced rapid fertility decline without concomitant decrease in the extent of son preference. Parents are no longer prepared to bear as many children as it takes to have a son, but they nevertheless want a son. This puts them under greater pressure to have boys within the first few births.

The case of South Korea is of special interest among these Asian countries because it has experienced the earliest and most far-reaching economic and social development. Until very recently however, gender inequalities in public and domestic life have persisted, partly encouraged by public policy support of traditional gender roles (Das Gupta et al., 2004, Kim, 2001). The low status of Korean women is reflected in the fact that Korea ranks 59th out of 85 countries in the UNDP gender empowerment measure (GEM), as opposed to a high 27th rank out of 140 countries according to the Gender Development Index (GDI)² (United Nations Development Programme, 2005). Yet, South Korea has not been immune to social change. Over the past decade, the sex ratios at birth have normalized.

This article reviews the trends in the sex ratio at birth in Korea, and the cultural underpinnings of a preference for sons. Using the evidence of successive surveys, it then demonstrates how attitudes have changed over time. Finally, it examines how the relaxation of the traditional attitude of the preference for male children is accompanied by a reduced attention to other traditional beliefs, such as attending to auspicious birth years for female children.