This is the 10th installment in a 30-part special report focusing on social changes in Korea since the civil uprising in June 1987, a watershed in contemporary Korean history. A select group of Korean sociology professors will contribute essays analyzing the diverse aspects of societal transformation during the past two decades. - Ed.


If you flick through your cable TV channels on any given night, you will see a variety of talk shows with candid discussions on dating, relationships and sex. Many of the shows` guests, or "clients," as they`re called, share personal stories about everything from one-night stands to problems in bed to having multiple sex partners. Oftentimes, the "clients" remain anonymous, hidden in shadows or blurred out, perhaps to spare them the embarrassment of sharing such intimate details with the whole nation.
It is hard to believe that just a few years ago, shows of this nature were all imports from the West. And before that, having shows like that on TV was unthinkable! But today, these shows are hosted by Koreans, with Korean guests, and for Korean audiences.
The Korea we live in today is surely a very different Korea from that of our forefathers. Are Korean family values changing? In recent years, many have argued that Korean values and attitudes toward family - including gender roles, marriage, cohabitation and divorce - are changing and becoming more progressive.
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It is often believed that such changing attitudes have further resulted in a gaping schism between the older and younger generations, with the younger generation deviating from the traditional values that the older generation stubbornly continues to uphold.
Korea has undoubtedly experienced dramatic social changes in a relatively short period of time, and it is still in the midst of rapid change. And these changes have become apparent in family values and attitudes as well.
But contrary to popular belief, results from various surveys tell a slightly different story: Korean values and attitudes are changing in general, but our society is still dominated by very conservative and traditional family values.

Gender (in)equality and roles

Korea began its full-scale transition into a modern society in the post-colonial era of the 1960s. It was during this time that the modern Korean family began to take form, with many traits similar to those of the modern Western family.
What resulted was a set of family values in which there was a strict gender division that dictated what the roles of the husband and wife were to be - tahat men must provide for the family by working outside the home, and women should be in charge of household work and child care.
Such a distinct division in gender roles was by no means a novel concept in Korean society. Traditionally, Korea was an agricultural society, and the family was the unit responsible for all production and consumption. Therefore, men generally worked outside the home, but they also did household chores that were deemed only appropriate for men. Similarly, women not only worked inside the home but also had duties outside, such as making clothing or even working in the dry fields.
In the case of affluent gentry who did not need to work, men who were free from the burdens of housework would assume their role as the head of the household by maintaining or increasing family wealth, without having to directly involve themselves in production. The women, on the other hand, would take charge of affairs at home by either taking on household and parenting duties, or by delegating these responsibilities to others.
Here, the "separation of man and wife" principle that laid out distinct spheres of activity for married men and women was naturally transferred into the family as a clear division of gender roles. This was the most fundamental norm in Confucian doctrine that dominated as a national ideology in the late Joseon dynasty, affecting the everyday lives of everyone who lived during that time.
On a surface level, modern family values are mutually beneficial values based on the specific strengths and specialties of each gender. On a deeper level, however, this defining of distinct spheres of activity has led to gender inequality in various areas, including education, employment and career prospects.
But the rise in the level of education attained by women and their growing participation in society began to challenge these modern family values that were once deeply rooted in a strict division of gender roles. This is partly due to the fact that when a society achieves economic development and is free from hunger and poverty, the values that dictate people shift from survival to the promotion of individual freedom and the quality of life.
In recent years, our society has experienced a dramatic shift in the way it views what women can or cannot do. Contemporary Korean society no longer views a college education, for example, as something solely for men. Today, Korean women and men both equally attend college, and it is considered totally normal and perhaps even expected for women to pursue higher education degrees alongside men.
In the annual World Values Survey, 37 percent of Korean respondents in 1995 said they believed a university education is more important for a man than for a woman. That figure had dropped to 23 percent by 2006.
That means that there has been an overall increase in attitudes related to gender equality, as implied by this progress in female educational attainment. But at the same time, it`s worth pointing out that nearly a quarter of the Korean population still believes a college education is more important for men than for women. And if you break that down by gender, that is one in four men, as opposed to one in five women, who agreed with the statement that a university education is more important for men.
So gender bias may be fading, but it still lingers heavily in Korean society, as implied by the alarmingly significant number of Koreans who still agree to the above statement. In fact, the wage gap between men and women persists throughout the world, and Korea is certainly no exception. The percentage of women in high-paying professions is still very low in Korea. And while Koreans may now strongly support equal higher education opportunities for both men and women, the reality is that Korean society is still fairly conservative in its views toward gender.
If a good portion of our society still feels that way about college education for women, you can imagine how it reacts to women as political leaders. In 1995, 63 percent of Korean respondents agreed to the statement, "On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do." In 2006, less than half (48 percent) of the respondents agreed.
Again we see an encouraging shift toward gender equality in the past 10 years. But given the fact that nearly half of the Korean population still prefers a male politician over a female one, we can hardly say gender inequality is no longer an issue in our society today.
If you break these results down by gender, the findings are even more alarming. More than half of the male respondents (54 percent) said that men make better political leaders than women. These are the results of last year`s survey. But it is not like women are itching to prove themselves as political leaders, either: Four out of 10 women (or 42 percent) also believe that men are more politically competent.
These findings are troublesome, but perhaps we can find some comfort in acknowledging that Korea has indeed made progress, especially compared to just 10 years ago. And on a global scale, there are societies that have more traditional views of gender roles than Korea. These include Eastern European countries like Hungary, Czech, and Poland, or Latin American countries like Mexico and Chile. (Figure 1)

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But don`t gloat yet: despite the fact that Korea is economically on a par with many advanced countries, Korean family values are still as traditional and conservative in this area as the Philippines, a country that lags far behind Korea in terms of economic development.
Koreans are more open to women in the workforce. Even back in 1995, eight out of 10 respondents agreed with the statement that both the husband and wife should contribute to household income. And more than 10 years later, that figure remains the same.
At the same time, Koreans` attitudes toward housewives could have negative implications for women. Ironically, nine out of 10 Koreans said in 1995 that being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for wages; results from the 2006 survey produced the same number. In other words, Koreans believe that a career woman and a housewife are of equal worth.
It is hard to digest such contradictory findings. If the majority of Koreans think wives should contribute to household income, why do they also think being a housewife is just as valuable as being a career woman? Perhaps one explanation is that most married women are housewives, and the concept of working housewife has become so natural that housewives who do not work may even be frowned upon. Or maybe public sentiment has simply shifted to define house chores done by housewives as labor. (Figure 2)
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Here is yet another explanation: Gender roles in Korean society are not changing as dramatically as people would like to think. Yes, women`s participation in education and the labor force has grown by leaps and bounds, but family norms regulating family life maintain a male-centered and female-subordinated structure.
As I argued in an article published in last August`s Asia-Pacific Population Journal, working mothers are still expected to be simultaneously full-time career woman and full-time housewife. This "second shift" is mandatory for Korean women, regardless of their educational achievement or professional careers.
This means that increased educational and work opportunities for women are not necessarily making life easier for them. Our strong traditional family values are simply not commensurate with improved social status for women. The difference between family ideals (the Korean woman as full-time housewife and "perfect mother") and social circumstance (the need for the Korean wife to contribute to family income) inevitably causes a work-life imbalance for women, because now they are expected to simultaneously fulfill both roles - in effect, be a superwoman. This is the phenomenon many sociologists cite as the most significant factor contributing to fertility decline in contemporary Korean society.

Changing but still conservative family values

Thus, family values in Korean society still remain largely conservative, especially compared to the rest of the world. In fact, Korean family values and attitudes are among the most conservative in the world, particularly in attitudes regarding marriage, cohabitation and divorce.
According to data collected by the International Social Survey Program in 2002 and the Korean General Social Survey in 2003 and 2006, Korea and the Philippines have the most traditional attitudes toward marriage in the world. Koreans and Filipinos scored the highest in the number of respondents who agreed with the statement, "Married people are generally happier than unmarried people." (Figure 3)

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This finding is particularly surprising when considering the wide economic gap between the two countries. Economic growth is known to greatly influence people`s attitudes and perceptions of their societies. But at the time the survey was conducted, Korean`s gross national income per capita was nearly $10,000, while the Philippines had not yet reached $1,000.
Koreans` strong affinity for marriage is further evident in their attitudes toward cohabitation.
In many cultures, cohabitation without marriage is considered an acceptable lifestyle, and children born outside of marriage tend to be recognized as legitimate members of society. Such societies have seen a weakening, or complete destruction of, the norm that reproduction must occur within marriage. The distinction between so-called legitimate and illegitimate offspring has been done away with even in legal terms.
But in Korean society, reproduction within a married couple is still recognized as the only legitimate form of reproduction. General perceptions about cohabitation still remain largely negative. And offspring that result from cohabitation - and not within the bonds of marriage - are not recognized as legitimate at all.
Koreans still firmly believe in the institution of marriage as the only legitimate form of a man and a woman living together, according to results from the ISSP and the KGSS, and thus cohabitation is not considered acceptable. Korea had the highest number of respondents in the world who disagreed with the statement, "It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married." (Figure 4)

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Korea also had one of the highest numbers of respondents who believed that "people who want children ought to get married." The only countries that scored higher than Korea were the Philippines and the United States, but the differences of the scores were not statistically significant. (Figure 5)

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That the Korean National Statistical Office does not collect data on cohabitation testifies to the societal resistance to even asking about cohabitation as a possible living arrangement between men and women in Korea.
Under such societal conditions, young people in Korea whose financial or other personal circumstances prevent them from getting married may find it difficult to live together and, furthermore, even dream of having children. Of course there are those who challenge the norm that childbearing must occur inside a marriage, but that does not change the fact that this norm is still firmly intact in Korean society.
Even if we assume that not everyone adheres to these norms, births that occur outside of marriage are quite rare. In the face of such strong social norms regarding marriage and reproduction, young people who are unable to marry also may not feel like they can have children. Such a phenomenon is manifested in contemporary Korean society in the form of fertility birth rates.
Then what of our attitudes toward divorce? The divorce rate in Korea has been steadily increasing, especially since the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Our society no longer views divorce as a taboo, and popular sentiment holds that divorce is a matter of choice.
But once again, Koreans exhibit a strong traditional attitude toward divorce in comparison to the rest of the world. While divorce is one area that most Asian countries still frown upon, many European societies have accepted divorce as a very appropriate solution for a married couple with irreconcilable differences. (Figure 6)
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So what does this mean?

Let us once again consider the growing prevalence of Korean sex talk shows. If Korean society has deviated from tradition as much as many have claimed, why do these shows` "clients" feel the need to hide behind screens and blurred images? Rarely - or should I say "never" - do guests on Western talk shows hide their identities when they share personal stories about their marriages and/or sexual activity.
The truth is that yes, Korean family values are changing. But when put in a global context, Korea still appears to have one of the most traditional and conservative set of family values in the world.
In fact, cross-examination of data indicates that the Korean family value system is comparable to those in Muslim societies.
Although responses to the KGSS also showed a gap between generations, with the older generation tending to be more conservative than the younger generation, both generations still hold relatively traditional views regarding family values. Korean society as a whole seems to remain very conservative and traditional, still reflecting strong customs and a neo-Confucian legacy.
Values and attitudes do not possess a permanence that transcends time periods or society; there is no such thing as an absolute value or attitude, especially when it comes to family. Instead, already existing family values and attitudes in a given time period or a given society often transcend individual values and attitudes to take the form of a social norm.
In recent years, Korea has seen a growing change in family values to better fit the times in which we currently live. Contemporary Korean society is definitely moving away from conservative family values toward the direction of gender equality and progressive attitudes on various family values including marriage and gender roles.
But for now, it is still premature to say that our family values are no longer traditional or conservative.

By Eun Ki-soo