Preference towards girls in South Korea

[bhchao]

There is a gradual shift in the traditional preference for boys to a preference for girls in South Korea: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/world/asia/23skorea.html

Baby girls are starting to become more widely accepted in South Korea due to the country's socioeconomic changes over the past 30 years.

The article provides insight into what could happen in China as more people join the middle class each year.

The shift towards the acceptance of baby girls in South Korea is not surprising considering the country's aging population "time bomb". Women are more capable in providing for the elderly while men are usually absent emotionally and physically with regards to elderly care.

In South Korea, once one of Asia's most rigidly patriarchal societies, a centuries-old preference for baby boys is fast receding. And that has led to what seems to be a decrease in the number of abortions performed after ultrasounds that reveal the sex of a fetus.

According to a study by the World Bank in October, South Korea is the first of several Asian countries with large sex imbalances at birth to reverse the trend, moving toward a greater parity between the sexes. Last year, the ratio was 107.4 boys born for every 100 girls, still above what is considered normal, but down from a peak of 116.5 boys born for every 100 girls in 1990.

The most important factor in changing attitudes toward girls was the radical shift in the country's economy that opened the doors to women in the work force as never before and dismantled long-held traditions, which so devalued daughters that mothers would often apologize for giving birth to a girl...

In China in 2005, the ratio was 120 boys born for every 100 girls, according to the United Nations Population Fund. Vietnam reported a ratio of 110 boys to 100 girls last year...

And last year, a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs showed that of 5,400 married South Korean women younger than 45 who were surveyed, only 10 percent said they felt that they must have a son. That was down from 40 percent in 1991...

...Park Su-mi, 29, a newlywed who calls the idea that only men carry on a family's bloodline "unscientific and absurd".

"My husband and I have no preference at all for boys," she said. "We don't care whether we have a boy or girl because we don't see any difference between a boy and a girl in helping make our family happy."

[muyongshi]

My thoughts is that people start to realize that many times boys (especially due to current society for reasons that I only have a theory on) are much to 调皮 and so people want the 乖 little girls! Ha ha.

[gato]

The shift towards the acceptance of baby girls in South Korea is not surprising considering the country's aging population "time bomb". Women are more capable in providing for the elderly while men are usually absent emotionally and physically with regards to elderly care.

Not sure if that's true, but would be ironic since the traditional justification for preferring sons was that sons were more able to take care of parents in old age because they would with at home with parents even after marriages, whereas daughters married out and would only take care of the in-laws.

[cdn_in_bj]

The article provides insight into what could happen in China as more people join the middle class each year.

Pretty much nobody in the upper-middle class that I've talked to has stated a preference for boys. Most are fine with either, but many also state a preference for girls. They point out that girls are generally better behaved and joke that girls are "cheaper" to have. Cheaper because the man is expected to provide the house and car, though even this has started to change too.

[ipsi()]

cdn_in_bj, while that's a bit sad, it's also kinda true. While in the more rural areas, I could understand it given that boys just tend to be stronger, and gender preferences are more ingrained, it may actually tend towards girls in the cities, at some future point.

I don't know about China, but in New Zealand, a number of studies have shown that girls seem to perform better, academically, than boys do. I'm not sure if it's the way things are taught (some studies believe so), if girls are naturally more suited for academic study (I'm sure there are some people who believe it), or for some other reason. It's quite strange. I can kinda bear that out from anecdotal experience - the boys tended to be slacker, and tended to be more disruptive (which is not to say the girls weren't, but I think I noticed it more with the boys).

Of course, if you went and talked to some of the police officers on duty on Friday Nights, they'd probably tell you to avoid daughters at all costs...

Not sure if that carries over to University, as I think the studies were primarily done at High Schools. If it does, though, then the hard sciences have some *serious* problems - I nearly dropped dead from shock when I counted 4 girls in my third-year Computer Science course. Physics and Chemistry and Math are also pretty bad for it, but Comp Sci is the worst offender, to the best of my knowledge.

On the other hand, if it is true, Gender Studies and Art History should be two of our specialties (in the first it's probably like 95% female, the second probably 70% female).

[Rhubarb]

Comp Sci is the worst offender, to the best of my knowledge.

We had classmates from Hong Kong @ the uni of North London (now London Met) and out of the 5 overseas HK students two were female, not too bad .